Hellraiser: Hellfire
by XanderDG
Summary: A young Sebastian Shaw's first sojourn on behalf of the Hellfire Club may well be his last.
1. The Rook

Chris Claremont, Alan Moore and Clive Barker created many  
of the characters featured herein, and Marvel Comics, DC Comics and  
Dimension Films control the rights to them. This story was  
written purely for the free entertainment of its readers. It  
contains graphic imagery, adult language, mature themes  
and is not meant for children. Feedback is appreciated at  
XanderDG@hotmail.com.  
  
______________________________________________  
  
HELLRAISER: HELLFIRE  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
  
_______________________________________________  
  
1  
  
The salad days of Studio 54 had come and gone well  
before I had the chance to enjoy them. In the late '70s, it  
was the center of celebrity culture. Film stars mixed and  
mingled with the darlings of literature. It would not have  
been uncommon to see a major sports figure chatting up a  
stunning model in one of the VIP booths, or to enter a  
bathroom stall and find a rock star and a disco queen  
coming to a carnal truce. The beautiful people here were  
not confined to those at home in New York. No. This was  
a world-wide terminus for the glitterati.  
  
Normal folks, everyday Joes and Janes would line up  
for blocks to gain admittance, to bask in the reflected  
celebrity glow. Entry was more than simply a matter of  
waiting your turn. The doormen were gatekeepers to a  
fiefdom whose feudal lord accepted tribute in the form of  
golden, youthful skin. They would stroll down the lines,  
handpicking only those who would look right on the dance  
floor, splitting marriages when it suited their caprice. Those  
lucky enough to be selected would be paraded in front of  
Steve Rubel, the owner of 54, and he would play Caesar:  
thumbs up. Thumbs down. Once inside, the chosen would  
gyrate and sweat to the throbbing rhythms spun by the djs,  
clouding the great hall in their scents. Occasionally, the  
very lucky would be noticed by one of the deities seated  
above and might be ushered upstairs to make a more  
personal exaltation of gods named Nicholson or Halston or  
Gibb.  
  
Even if I had come into the City during that time, I  
never would have made it into the club. I was thick and  
muscled in a time when the fashion leaned toward a more  
feminine musculature, and the calluses on my large hands  
would not have met with any manicured scrutiny. Besides,  
it was not as though I owned any clothes appropriate to 54.   
I didn't even own my first suit until after I'd joined the  
Club. Of course, I wasn't aware that I was missing  
anything.  
  
Shaw Industries was still Shaw Homebuilders at that  
point. Dad had me roofing in the summer of 1978, the apex  
of the culture that 54 embodied. I didn't mind the work.   
My skin was deeply tanned and girls in Philly liked a rough  
looking fella even if the ones in New York did not. It was a  
good time to be a kid. When my father died at the end of the  
season, tumbling off a roof as I watched, nobody expected  
the twenty-year-old college dropout to be able to take over  
the business and keep things going. They really didn't  
expect the company to corner the speculative housing  
market before the end of the year. I fired my dad's partner,  
Doug Burton, when he told me that trying to develop  
property in New York was a fools errand. When he and his  
sons came to collect his share of the corporate assets the  
lesson I taught them was brief but memorable.   
  
My father always told me what a noble profession  
building houses was. That it was great because nobody  
could ever get hurt when you were making people homes.   
He walked his whole life with his head held high, he said,  
because being a builder was the most essential thing to any  
community. I held out that being an owner was somewhat  
more lucrative. By the autumn of 1980, two years after  
dad's passing, I owned half of Manhattan's waterfront and  
made my first billion. The calluses on my hands had long  
since disappeared.  
  
By the time I had finally attained enough to bypass  
the line and step behind the velvet rope at 54, to look down  
on the dance floor from the VIP deck, it was a much less  
auspicious occurrence than if I'd been born a couple years  
earlier (or if my father hadn't waited so long to take his  
tumble). It was a Friday night, but the crowd below was  
thin. In 1981, people were no longer turned away at the  
door regardless of what they looked like, and the only  
celebrity in evidence was a chubby young porn star.  
  
"Here you are, Sebastian," said Donald Pierce,  
handing me a martini glass filled with something brown.   
Donald's accent was colored by an education at Exeter and  
Yale, but his temperament was much less refined. "Come  
over and sit down. My God! You must see this blonde."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Ron Jeremy had her brought upstairs. I'm sure  
she's working, but still . . ."  
  
"Go ahead. I'll be right there." Donald sauntered  
into the circle of cracked red couches. I met him about a  
year before at the Club, and though it was clear he was a  
shallow man of limited ambition, he was fun to be around.   
He knew places in Chinatown where one could indulge  
nearly any proclivity.  
  
I looked back down at the floor for a moment,  
staring at lithe bodies swaying rhythmically to the last dying  
strains of disco. As it often did at this removed vantage  
point, my mind slipped toward things Roman and Greek. I  
imagined the Bacchanal such a place might have been in  
more classical times when something caught my eye. In the  
midst of the floor there was a stillness. The crowd seemed  
almost to be swirling around it like the animals of a  
carousel. With the beating of the strobes and colored lights  
it was difficult to fix on the figure, so I put down my drink  
and leaned over the safety rail, frowning.  
  
My concentration was so focused that the music  
seemed to fade. It was like listening through water. There  
was something in the crowd, right in the center, yet not a  
soul came near. Not within three feet. It was a man. I was  
sure of that. The coat he wore was wrong for the season,  
intolerably so for the inside of a hot club. It was black and  
it glimmered as though it was plastic. Or it was wet. He  
stood there, unaffected by the crowd or the lights, holding  
my attention in an almost preternatural way. Then he  
looked up and seemed to stare at me, except that he had no  
eyes. The figure's gray face had no features of any kind  
except for an inhuman smile. There was no mirth to the  
look, though, for the man only grinned because he had no  
lips to cover his teeth.  
  
The figure raised a gloved hand in front of his face  
and extended a slim index finger. No flesh could be that  
gray, my mind screamed. Not alive. It must have been the  
strobes. The creature tapped the center of his head, where a  
third eye would be.  
  
"Jesus Christ," I hissed. The words came unbidden,  
and I stepped back from the balcony. I knocked my drink  
from the bannister and the glass bounced when it hit the  
floor. I looked down and watched the cold bourbon soak  
into the dark carpet, and couldn't help but think of blood.  
  
I looked back at my assembled peers in the VIP  
suite. I thought of grabbing Donald to show him this living  
nightmare, to prove its existence was not my imagination  
bowing to late nights in the Club's library. When I turned  
back downstairs, the figure was moving away across the  
dance floor, the crowd seeming to part before him. For a  
moment, I thought to give chase.  
  
***  
  
"My dad *says* he's disappointed in me when  
mom's around," Ron Jeremy said. "But I have the feeling  
that deep down he's proud." Donald laughed at the chubby  
kid - not with, at. I had watched a couple of his pictures on  
Beta, and as much as the kid might claim that skin flicks  
were his ticket to being a real, Hollywood actor, everyone  
else in the VIP room knew differently. I suspected that the  
only thing the boy's father might be proud of had more to  
do with genetics than talent.  
  
The blonde laughed then, as though she read my  
thought. I arched my eyebrows and looked over at her.   
Donald had been right about the woman on both counts.   
She was, very clearly, a working girl. Judging from the men  
in the room, she was a very good one. When the time came  
to leave, there might be a bidding war. I intended to win it  
and see what the seductress was made of.  
  
Again, she grinned at me in a way that seemed to  
respond to the thoughts flitting through my consciousness.   
I was normally a fantastic poker player with a stoic face that  
defied reading, but the man I saw on the dance floor had  
clearly bothered me more than I expected. It had to be  
someone in make-up. Halloween was right around the  
corner, and somebody had put together an exceptional  
mask. Still, I could hear the ice tinkling in my glass (vodka  
this time, nothing dark). My hand shook slightly as  
adrenaline coursed through my system. Fear was a great  
motivator, but nearly an hour had passed. Still, when I  
blinked I saw that smiling, lipless face . . .  
  
The other thing Pierce had gotten right was the  
blonde's beauty. She was stunning, perfect. She wore a  
white dress so minuscule that you could see the garters  
strapped to the tops of her stockings. Her hair was  
practically white, and her skin an alabaster so pure and  
unblemished it might have been porcelain. There was just  
enough color to her that it was easy to imagine how red her  
cheeks would become when I was fucking her. The woman  
was also smart. As each of the men in the room spoke to  
her, she seemed to be an expert on whatever subject was at  
hand. This was not some gutter whore who got lucky  
finding an affluent john; this woman was practically a  
courtesan.  
  
There were three men in the room besides Donald,  
the porn star and myself. Somehow, all the other women  
had left. The other gents may not have been aware of it, but  
it was late enough in the evening now that we were all  
looking at one another as competition for the woman's  
affections. The side-long glances from man to man  
stemmed from some primal place deep within. "Who is the  
alpha-male," the eyes asked. Who would walk away with  
the beautiful prize? I looked back over at our own brass  
ring of the evening, and as with every other time, she  
returned my glance.   
  
This time I held it and she maintained a level stare  
with her cold, blue eyes. I felt a tickle in the back of my  
skull, as though there were a sneeze building somewhere  
deep in the lizard brain. The woman ignored the babble of  
the tall man sitting beside her, a tan-line on his finger where  
he had removed his wedding ring. He was talking about his  
tremendous success in the record industry. Each of the men  
in turn had spent time discussing their successes, almost  
listing their resumes for the blonde's review. Indeed, as we  
looked at one-another I felt an almost overpowering desire  
to tell her about my wealth, to brag about my money.   
Instead, I held her gaze and chose silence.  
  
"My name's Tabitha," she said to me in a lilting  
English accent. Her voice was smokey and hard. The man  
next to her ceased his chattering, giving up the fight.   
Donald snorted and drained his drink.  
  
"Tabitha?" I asked.  
  
"Tabitha."  
  
"I just bet it is," I said. She tilted her head slightly, a  
narrow grin painting the corner of her pink mouth. "I'm  
Sebastian Shaw. This is Donald Pierce."  
  
"You're a quiet one, Shaw."   
  
"It's late. Past my bedtime." I stood up, pulling my  
coat from the back of the couch. "What about you,  
Tabitha? Is it your bedtime, too?" I thought again about  
how flushed her face would be if she were coming, and a  
smile bloomed fully on her lips. There was something cruel  
in it. The blonde stood, a practiced, serpentine motion, and  
she walked to me.  
  
"Goodnight, gentlemen," I said to the room. They  
looked at me with a jealousy that was positively electric.   
"Come along, Donald."   
  
***  
  
It was freezing outside 54, and Donald put his coat  
around the shoulders of the woman calling herself Tabitha.   
I was inwardly amused by such a chivalrous gesture being  
wasted on a harlot, but made no mention of it. The  
doorman eagerly accepted the ten I put in his hand and ran  
around the building to alert my driver. We stood in waiting  
with our steaming breath visible in the air.  
  
"Whose turn is it, Shaw?" Donald asked.  
  
"I believe it's yours."  
  
"Mm." He turned to Tabitha. "Shall we go ahead  
and discuss remuneration, my dear?" Tabitha arched her  
eyebrows and glanced from Donald to me and back.  
  
"The both of you then?" She looked back at me.   
"For the both of you I would expect . . ."  
  
"Yeah?" Donald asked.  
  
"You know," she said, moving close to my friend  
but keeping her eyes on me. She whispered wetly into his  
ear, sliding her hands from his lapel down, putting on a  
show. "You know, I think what I would like to do is put  
my faith in you. I think that I'll ask you to compensate me  
however much you think is fair."  
  
What was her game, I wondered. She turned  
Donald's head and kissed him hard on the mouth, the flick  
of her glistening tongue reflecting pale light of the street  
lamp. For an instant I could have sworn that I could taste  
the sweet, smokey flavor of her mouth. I watched them,  
every bit the voyeur until I heard the tires moving over the  
slush behind me. I turned, expecting to find my car.  
  
Instead of the Jaguar, there was a nondescript black  
sedan. A driver stepped out, walked around the car and  
opened the passenger door. The man who got out was one  
of the oddest looking men I had ever laid eyes on. Of  
course, I had seen him at the Club many times before,  
though he had never deigned to so much as look in my  
direction. This time, I was all he seemed to see.  
  
"Oh, shit," Donald whispered behind me.  
  
"What?" Tabitha asked. I held up my hand for  
silence.  
  
The small man, I knew him only as the Rook, moved  
to stand immediately in front of me. He was well within the  
shell of what I considered my personal space, well within  
the limits of what I would have tolerated from any other  
stranger. Yet despite the difference in our size (he was,  
perhaps, five-foot-two and a hundred pounds while I stand  
six-four and weigh a great deal more), I found him  
intimidating. The Rook's eyes were enormous and they  
never seemed to blink. His hair was unfashionably cut close  
to his scalp, and he wore a black suit with a white shirt.   
The hooked edge of a tattoo snuck out above the edge of  
his collar, as though it were trying to escape the confines of  
some infernal prison. The Rook grinned at me for a  
moment.  
  
"Ninety-three," I said at last. The number was a  
statement of greeting within the Club. It was heavy with  
numerological significance, but had come to mean little  
more than the secret handshake at one of Pierce's college  
fraternities.  
  
The Rook said nothing, but held up his hand. He  
turned it forwards and backwards so I could see both sides.   
Then, suddenly, there was a card between his fingers. A  
parlor trick. Hedge magic. Tabitha stepped up by my side  
leaving the frightened Donald behind us. The Rook's eyes  
never left my own, and I noticed that you couldn't tell  
where the cornea ended and the pupil began. His eyes were  
black as the devil's.   
  
He extended the card toward me and I took it. It  
was a simple black, no bigger than a business card. There  
was no writing on it, only a single figure. In the middle of  
the card was a chess piece. It was a white king.  
  
"When?" I asked the Rook.  
  
"What is he on about?" Tabitha asked. I ignored  
her.  
  
The Rook reached forward and plucked the card  
from my fingers. With a snapping motion, he flipped it over  
and replaced it. "9 AM" was scrawled on the back in a  
hatchet script. The Rook continued to stare at me, and I  
nodded at him.  
  
"I'll be there." He nodded and began to turn away  
when he frowned, the small smile leaving his face for the  
first time in the exchange. He looked at me for a moment,  
seemed to change his mind, then looked at Tabitha perched  
on my arm. His smile returned and he held one finger up,  
wagging it back and forth.  
  
"Wha . . ." Tabitha cried out before she could finish  
her thought. She screeched and jolted back, her hand flying  
to her left temple. "Jesus bleeding Christ!" she shouted.   
Pierce went to try and help but she shoved him away.  
  
I turned back to the Rook, but he was already sitting  
down in the sedan. He didn't look back in our direction and  
the driver shut the door, trotting around to the front and  
clambering in. The car sped away. I had been summoned.  
  
"Tabitha, are you alright?" Donald kept asking. My  
tone would be less conciliatory.  
  
"What the hell did you do, woman?" I shouted. I  
grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. To my  
surprise, her nose was bleeding and a look of genuine terror  
strained her features. Still, I had to know. I shook her.   
"Well?"  
  
"Nothing! I did nothing!" Her hands were  
reflexively smoothing my lapels, and I felt a calming buzz,  
like a vibration in the back of my head. "Please," she said.   
Though I wanted to believe her, to get on with my night, my  
anger was too entrenched.  
  
"Tell me, woman! What happened just now?" I  
shook her again, and now I saw that the fear on her face  
was directed at me. That was fine.  
  
"Ease up, old man." Donald put his hand on my  
shoulder, and I turned around sharply, fully prepared to bite  
my companion's head off. A crowd was gathering around  
us, and my car had returned. I was making a scene.  
  
I looked back at Tabitha, and I noticed that there  
was something else mingled in with her fear. Something  
appealing. Something I had done had struck a cord. I  
reached into my jacket and gave her my handkerchief for  
her nose. She took it, her hand lingering on mine for a  
moment too long.  
  
***  
  
She finished Donald off with ease. He was a  
preliminary and we both knew it. I watched the woman  
calling herself Tabitha take my friend on the couch of my  
living room. I watched her make him believe he was taking  
her. When it was finished, she put him to bed like a child  
and there was almost a chaste beauty to the moment. After  
she closed the door to the guest bedroom, she turned  
around to face me. She was good, this strange English  
darling, but she would find my appetites much more difficult  
to satisfy.  
  
We stood in the dark for a moment, less like two  
lovers than predator and prey sizing each other up across a  
shimmering African water hole. Then we came at each  
other. A cat-like noise escaped her throat and she struck  
out, her nails raking across my chest, raising welts.   
Strength flowed into my limbs and when she reared back to  
lash out again I deflected the blow. Tabitha twisted,  
surprisingly strong, determined to throw me to the floor, to  
remain the carnivore. The force of her writhing only added  
to my own, endorphins flowing, my pulse quickening. I  
held her fast, squeezing her wrist hard enough to hurt  
without damaging her too badly. An involuntary smile  
stretched my mouth.  
  
I raised my other hand and grabbed under her jaw,  
lifting her face to the city lights shining through the window.   
He skin was rose petal soft. I wished for a moment that my  
manicured hands were callused again. Her teeth were  
barred, and she hissed. I tilted her face back and forth,  
appraising.  
  
Tabitha relaxed under my gaze and I released my  
grip on her arm. She pulled it close to her, between her  
breasts, massaging her bruised wrist with her other hand. I  
drew her closer to the window, never loosening my hold on  
her chin, her tender throat. I put my other hand between  
her legs, feeling the slickness born of Donald's exertions.   
Her brow furrowed, narrowing her wet, blue eyes. She  
moaned as my hand did its work.  
  
"What is your name?" I whispered. "Your true  
name." Her breath hitched in her throat and she reached  
down, placing her hand on top of my own.  
  
"Emma. It's Emma," she said. She leaned forward  
and bit me softly on my chin. Then she attacked. This time  
when Emma twisted, she succeeded in throwing me hard to  
the floor. She leapt down on top of me, a creature of tooth  
and claw. When she next bit down, it drew blood.  
  
The sun was high by the time we were spent. I was  
right when I imagined that the blonde's skin would flame  
when she came. Before the night was done, though, I  
realized that I had underestimated my own ability to blush.   
It had been too long.   
  
She slept in my bed, beautiful despite the marks left  
on her skin. I pulled a thousand dollars from the wall safe in  
my study and left it on the pillow next to her. The woman  
seemed to know my every fantasy, my every desire and she  
met each with as much enthusiasm as I. It was more than  
worth the money. I stared at her for a moment, then put my  
card on top of the bills. What the hell.  
  
After showering and looking in on Pierce (his  
slumber was an alcoholic one, and he would not rise from  
the stupor for some time), I went to my wardrobe. Hidden  
in back, far behind the designer suits and formal wear was  
an outfit protected by dry cleaner's plastic. I tore away the  
covering and pulled on the breaches, pulled the shirt over  
my head and put on the ridiculously tight jacket. I went to  
the dresser and sat before the mirror, pulling my hair back in  
to a tight ponytail. The shoes were the worst, and I dealt  
with them last, buckling the clunky things to my feet.   
  
My preparations complete, I called my secretary to  
reschedule the morning, then my driver, telling him to bring  
the Jag around. I had never met this man before, not alone  
at any rate, and I had no intention of being late. I stood  
again before the mirror - I might have been a member of the  
landed gentry in the late 18th Century. Perfect.  
  
I looked at the appointment card again. There was a  
power and simplicity to this figure of a simple chess piece.   
Though its rituals and religion were cloaked in secrecy to  
younger members, there were a few things that were  
perfectly clear. The foremost was that any meeting with the  
Inner Circle required formal dress. I knew on some level  
that the hand of destiny was at work, that a great  
opportunity was presenting itself to me. If any occasion  
required ceremony, it was first meeting with the White King  
of the Hellfire Club. I took a deep breath and went  
downstairs.  
  
______________________________________________________________  
  
To be continued . . . 


	2. The Knight

Not for children. For notes and disclaimer, please see part one. An   
additional attribution of copyright and acknowledgments will follow   
part four. The previous chapter may be found at the Fonts of Wisdom   
(home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/), here at fanfiction.net, and on on the   
Topica OTL archive (7/31/01). Your thoughts? Send them to   
XanderDG@hotail.com.  
  
_____________________________________________  
  
HELLRAISER: HELLFIRE  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
  
_______________________________________________  
  
2  
  
"There is an end to earthly pleasure, Mr. Shaw. There are only  
so many delicacies a man can devour before even the finest  
meals lose their flavor, only so many riches he can possess  
before the luster of gold seems muted and flat. But you know  
that already, do you not?"   
  
The shades were drawn in the White King's office. They were  
made of thin, white paper, and the sun from outside made them  
glow with natural fluorescence. Though they were opaque,  
Edward Buckman stood facing them attentively. Whatever he  
was seeing beyond the blinds held him in rapt attention. I  
thought to answer his rhetorical question when he turned back  
to me, his watery blue eyes lost behind the beginnings of  
cataracts. Buckman pursed his tight mouth. "Yes, yes. You  
know that already. You already know. Been making your own  
preparations, have you? Learning your craft? You can feel it in  
your very *bones*, can't you?"  
  
"I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Mr. Buckman."   
  
"Do not play smart with me, sir. Do not do that. I can read  
you. Oh yes. I can read you like a book." A vein stood out,  
bisecting the White King's pale forehead and for a moment I  
believed the reedy man might attack me. Then he smiled. His  
upper lip was sweating, and he flicked his tongue over it before  
he spoke. "Like you read the tomes in my library."  
  
"I am so appreciative of being in the Club that I endeavor to  
take advantage of every luxury it affords me," I said.   
Buckman's expression did not change. With my best salesman  
smile fixed on my face, I took a deep breath. The air in the  
colorless room stank of antiseptic, the synthetic lemon of  
hospitals and mortuaries.   
  
The Hellfire Club came to America in the 1770s, and had called  
this lot on Fifth Avenue its home for nearly the entire time.   
This building was more then a hundred-fifty years old, and most  
of the place smelled pleasantly of old books, ghostly pipe smoke  
and the linseed oil used to breath life into the wood. The  
King's chamber was different, though. The room was white  
and featureless. Its only fixture was a stainless steel sink set  
into the far wall, its only furniture a white table that might have  
served as a desk. There was a book on it, old and black and  
bound in a peculiar, dimpled black leather. It was utterly  
incongruous in the sanitary room, as though it were a hole  
carved out of space. I wondered if the White King ever sat  
down, if he had minions to cart in a chair whenever his legs  
grew weary.  
  
"I am no fool, Shaw," he said at last.  
  
"No, Mr. Buckman."  
  
"You're not like the others your age. They're all soft and  
weak. Feckless and stupid. But you . . . you're different, aren't  
you? There is something hard about you. Something hidden."   
The gaunt man's mouth moved, as though he were saying  
something but no words emerged. He rubbed his hands  
together in a slow, circular motion and walked toward me, his  
footfalls whispering over the white tiles.  
  
"Mm. They come to our parties and fill our coffers, but do you  
think these other youths have any conception of the work we  
do? Of the doors we hold the keys to?" He slowly circled me,  
and for a moment I thought he might have been trying to bed  
me. I suppose I might have complied for the right reward, but  
his seduction turned out to be of a different sort. "Only the  
very few even attempt to ask. What is it that you're looking  
for, Shaw, when you sit in my library until the sun rises? What  
truths do you seek?" He finished his circle to stand in front of  
me. His breath smelled of listerine.  
  
"Secrets, Mr. Buckman. I've always found that knowledge is  
power, and there is a lot of it hidden in those dusty books."   
Buckman laughed.  
  
"That there is! That there is!" He clapped his hands like a  
schoolgirl. "But what manner of information, hm? What books  
have your fingerprints on them?"  
  
"The Club was born of the Masons. It grew out of the Golden  
Dawn. I don't know much, but I know that the secrets at the  
heart of the Order are powerful ones. I know that this is more  
than a social club, White King, and that I can bring more to it  
than my annual dues." Buckman gasped, theatrically putting his  
hand to his mouth in a pantomime of mocking surprise.  
  
"Can it be? More than a social club? More than the deals you  
make over brandy and cigars? More than the whores we  
provide your out-of-town clients when they want a thrill in the  
big city?"  
  
"Yes. Much more. I know it."  
  
"Perhaps. Perhaps we serve a greater purpose. Perhaps we  
serve greater gods than the almighty dollar after all. Maybe we  
serve a more sinewy deity whose temple is less barren than your  
bank or your boardroom." He reached up and placed his hand  
on my shoulder. "Or even your bedroom. I may have called  
you here, but you have been all but begging for your chance in  
the light. What is it you believe you can bring me?"  
  
"I am strong. I am smart. I am fearless and . . ."  
  
"Strike me down then. If you are without fear, then assume my  
throne. I am thin and old while you are a strong, young man -  
you wouldn't even break a sweat." I thought about it for a  
moment, considering the White King's gamble. I wondered  
what cards he held. "Well? No? Of course not."   
  
He moved his hand to my cheek and touched it lightly, then  
turned and walked slowly to the sink as he spoke. "You are  
wise beyond your years. I have read the books in the library,  
them and many others and I have given them what they asked of  
me. I have been rewarded richly for my efforts. There is no  
earthly possession that I cannot hold, Shaw, and few beyond the  
mortal coil either." He began washing his hands, paying special  
attention to the one he touched me with.  
  
"Had you moved to strike me here in my sanctum, your heart  
would have withered in your chest. Do you doubt it?"  
  
"No," I said. I found that I really didn't.  
  
"Good. Such is my control over reality," he said, scrubbing his  
hands with a hard steel brush. "That is the root of magic,  
Shaw. Have your books told you that yet? That real spellcraft  
is only excerpting your will over what the uninitiated call real?   
I'm sure they have, so let me tell you a different secret." He  
turned to look at me, patting his hands dry on an unblemished  
white towel. Though I was dressed in the 18th Century  
vestments that served as the ceremonial garb of the Club,  
Buckman wore plain white pajamas that might have been  
fashioned from paper. His hands were red from their scrubbing.   
It was only then I realized that though the White King was  
powerful, he was also quite mad.   
  
"I've watched you, Sebastian. How you lead the young. How  
they flock to you to hear you counsel and listen to your  
conquests. You are quite correct, of course. The Hellfire Club  
is more than business meetings and kinky social pleasantries.   
We have power and influence the world over and can make any  
desire, any fantasy flesh as easily as I can draw water from this  
faucet. I believe that you are the man who should help me to  
design the future of our Order. You cannot begin to  
comprehend the fruits you will taste. I am a King. I would that  
you were my Knight."  
  
"Thank you. Thank you so much. I . . ."  
  
"But first you must prove yourself. Like all knights, you must  
go on a quest. I have grown weary, Shaw. I have tasted all  
that there is to taste in this world and crave something new.   
There is only one thing I know that can rejuvenate me. Only  
one thing that can awaken my tired nerves to the new era we sit  
on the precipice of."  
  
"Is it the blood of seven virgin girls?" I joked.  
  
"When I say I have tasted everything this little world has to  
offer, Sebastian, I mean it. No. My requirements are somewhat  
more occult than mere blood." He pressed a space on the wall  
that seemed the same as any other and a slot opened. He  
dropped the towel down the shoot, and when he turned his  
head, I noticed the thin pink scar behind his ears - a face lift.   
He approached the table.  
  
"Have you ever heard of LeMarchand's Box?" he asked.  
  
I shook my head and he came to stand with the table between  
us. The White King plucked a pair of thin white cotton gloves  
from the waistband of his pajamas and pulled them on. As he  
spoke he flipped through the book on the table. The writing  
inside was in a Cyrillic alphabet I didn't recognize, but what the  
images depicted showed was familiar enough. Heavy black  
engravings not unlike the work of Hieronimus Bosch blighted  
the ancient pages with scenes of tortures, demons, devils. This  
was a book of suffering.  
  
"Philippe LeMarchand was a clockmaker in Napoleonic France.   
It may be that he was the finest artisan of his kind in history.   
Regardless, he put the Swiss to shame, and nothing built today  
comes close to the intricacy and beauty of the chronological  
sculptures he created. I own a LeMarchand Clock, Shaw. I  
had it purchased in an auction at Christie's for a sum so large  
that wars could have been fought over it, but the money was  
worth it. Sometimes I open the case to my clock and watch the  
gears turn endlessly. Do you know what I see?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Sometimes, very late at night, I see God in the gears of my  
clock." He continued to flip absently through the pages for a  
moment. One of the drawings he passed idly over was of the  
gates to hell. Bodies swam over the surface of the stone, and it  
was impossible to tell if the naked forms were screaming in pain  
or pleasure.   
  
"But LeMarchand did not only make clocks. He used his  
prodigious mechanical skills to make amusements for the local  
children. He made puzzles for them. And it is one of his puzzle  
boxes that I desire. His finest creation, commissioned by  
Viscount De L'Isle."  
  
"De L'Isle? I know that name," I said. The man was written  
about in the occult histories alongside Rasputin and Crowley.   
"He was a magician, wasn't he? They say that after he was  
beheaded by the guillotine his head screamed until his body  
burned on the pyre."  
  
"The very same. He paid LeMarchand a king's ransom to  
create a puzzle box to the most exacting mathematical  
specifications. To build it with only the most exotic of  
materials. Ah, here we are," said the White King. He turned  
the book around to show me a drawing.  
  
There were several views of the puzzle box on the page. At  
first glance, the object was simplicity itself: a cube held at an  
angle with gold leaf inlay tamped into the paper. I frowned and  
leaned down to examine the drawings. The grain of the wood  
stood out clearly. It was not pine or maple but a pale ebony the  
color of coffee if the artist was to be believed. More interesting  
still was the gold filigree covering the box. The designs seemed  
wrong for France. They were oriental, ornate and delicate, and  
they seemed to border on language. It was as though the box  
itself were trying to say something through the page.  
  
LeMarchand's box was tilted this way and that in the drawings,  
and the genius of its design was apparent. Each of the six sides  
bore a different design, but the whole of the piece flowed as  
one. Concentric circles whirled into spirals that faded into  
geometric patterns that might have been the hieroglyphics of  
some long-dead world. The final drawing in the sequence was  
different. At first it appeared to be another object altogether,  
but on closer inspection it seemed to be the box folded over on  
top of itself. I looked at Buckman.  
  
"They're instructions. Instructions for solving the puzzle." He  
stared at me for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he shut  
the book with a dull thud.  
  
"Instructions? Who's to say? What is certain is that I want the  
box, and I want it unsolved and unopened. That is your  
knightly quest, Shaw. I want you to retrieve it for me."  
  
"Why is it so important?" I asked, knowing it was the wrong  
question even before the words left my mouth. I continued  
despite myself. "What do you want it for?"  
  
"The box has no significance in and of itself. All that matters is  
that I wish to have it." He moved around the table and close to  
me again, pulling the gloves from his hands. "I wish to have it,  
and if you bring it to me, you will have whatever you wish as  
well. Do we have an understanding Mr. Shaw?"  
  
It would be a step toward what I wanted. A big one. A Knight  
of the Council of the Chosen of the Hellfire Club. At twenty-  
four years old.   
  
"Yes. We have an understanding, Mr. Buckman." On a whim,  
I held out my hand. Whatever reason he had to want this  
antique puzzle, it was large enough that he would do things he  
found repellent. The White King looked from my face to my  
hand and back, licking his lips again. Then he shook with an  
awkward grip unaccustomed to such niceties.  
  
"Where do I have to go? Where is the box?" Buckman  
released my hand abruptly.  
  
"Two separate questions. The box is lost. I have had texts  
searched far and wide, and where the box is hidden remains a  
mystery. Its guardians seem cunning."  
  
"Guardians?"  
  
"They are written about, no different than a mummy's curse.   
Even if they are real, Shaw, the quest of a knight is not an easy  
road. I have chosen you for your courage and your skill." He  
smiled at me, an odd appeal to my ego that might have made an  
impression were his eyes not continually flicking toward the  
sink. "What I have only lately discovered, though, is someone  
who may know the path. A man who found the box, but who  
was too fearful to solve its mystery. Too cowardly to learn its  
lessons."  
  
"This man. Where is he? What is his name?"   
  
"He is a low-life and a failure. A con-man who fancies himself  
a magician. The man is in London. His name is John  
Constantine. Chantel will give you his information on your way  
out."  
  
With that my meeting, my audience was ended. Perhaps it was  
foolhardy, but I could not resist a final shot. I took the White  
King's hands in my own and gave them a squeeze.  
  
"I am *honored* to serve you," I said. I gave his hands a shake  
and then released them, turning to walk out the door. I stepped  
into Buckland's waiting area, the more pleasant smells of the  
club proper replacing the medicinal scent of his office. I heard  
water running from the faucet, the brittle thrash of his scrubbing  
before I even closed the door behind me.  
  
***  
  
The Club was all but empty this early in the day. I took this  
Constantine's London address from Buckman's beautiful  
secretary (she was stunning, and I reminded myself to take her  
to dinner, to dinner and breakfast upon my return), then walked  
down the stairs to the front. As I passed the dour portraits of  
Club luminaries from decades and centuries past I pondered my  
meeting with the White King.  
  
Was my ego so blinding me that I was missing something?   
How had this paranoid, neurotic scarecrow of a man held  
dominion of the richest and most powerful members of society  
for so long? Ever since I was a boy, I had regarded the rich and  
powerful with a mixture of awe and contempt. I watched them  
drive as quickly through my neighborhood in South Philly as  
they could, desperate to avoid the soot from the smokestacks  
that they themselves owned, and I hated them. Even in that  
hate though, I would stare down from where my father had me  
cleaning gutters and watch their beautiful cars, their beautiful  
clothes, their beautiful lives. I would stare. I would want. I  
knew that one day, I would *have*.  
  
Buckman was desperate for this child's toy. Desperate enough  
to send me half-way around the world on a goose chase to find  
it. Were it only an item of monetary value, the White King  
would have hired an investigator to go and buy the puzzle box.   
There was no need to waste capital within the Hellfire Club for  
some object d'art. No. There was more to LeMarchand's Box  
than its utility as a bauble, even an occult one listed in an  
ancient grimoire. I could feel that there was more to it. I saw it  
in the strange designs that cris-crossed its surface. Knightship  
or not, Buckland would find Sebastian Shaw something  
significantly more than an errand boy.  
  
I passed an Asian janitor silently buffing the floor in the foyer.   
He looked up at me and I gave him a smile. The man tilted his  
head slightly, as thought confused, then looked back down at  
his task. I pulled my coat close around me and stepped out the  
front door.  
  
Fifth Avenue blared cacophony in front of the Club. The entire  
street was motionless as a parking lot, and it seemed that every  
person in every car was laying on their horns. My secretary, a  
Jersey gum-chewer with a penchant for New Wave had  
introduced me to a group called Art of Noise. I thought that  
they might have done well to take lessons from this traffic jam.   
There were several people standing outside their automobiles  
despite the cold, staring down the road in morbid curiosity. An  
accident then.  
  
The Club's valet was standing out at the curb, leaning out into  
the street and ogling in the same direction as the other lookey-  
loos. I abhor a person who ignores their responsibilities. I  
walked up behind him and tapped him twice on the shoulder,  
hard. The man nearly leapt from his skin. He whirled and, on  
seeing me glowering down at him, tugged at the bottom of his  
red jacket to straighten it.  
  
"Mr. Shaw!"  
  
"What happened?" I asked.  
  
"I was only . . ." he realized I wasn't asking about his  
dereliction of duty. "It was an accident, sir. A bad one. A  
truck lost control in the slush. It hit a guy on a bike." He  
looked back up the street. "Poor son of a bitch," he said.  
  
This time, I followed his gaze past the long line of cars.   
Perhaps a hundred yards up Fifth, right at the intersection of  
Park were a number of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances.   
A red pick-up with Nevada plates lay on its side, and even at  
my distance I could plainly see the skeleton of a bicycle poking  
out from under the wreckage. I thought of Oz, the Great and  
Terrible, and of the Wicked Witch of the East crushed under the  
dislocated house of that Kansas child.   
  
"Yes," I said, turning back to the solid wall of traffic in front of  
the club. "Poor fellow. Where is my car? I need to be going."   
The valet turned to me with a perturbed look on his jowly face.   
He seemed ready to say something beyond his station, but  
decided against it.  
  
"No getting through this snarl, Mr. Shaw, and they ain't going  
to be clearing that intersection for a good while. You best go  
up around the block and meet your driver 'round the other  
side." He pointed toward the accident and I nodded to him and  
began walking toward Park. If the valet expected a tip for his  
lollygagging, he was sorely mistaken.  
  
I strolled up the road, listening to the symphony of honking  
horns. What did these fools believe all of this noise would  
accomplish? I thought again of LeMarchand's Box. I  
considered its symmetry, the perfection of the shapes that  
crawled upon the cube's surface. As I walked, I glanced from  
car to car, noting the curves of a Jaguar, the boxy strength of a  
Volvo. The faces of the drivers ranged from enraged to bored,  
blank to animated. All of them though, each and every one was  
pressing their horns at intervals approaching regularity.  
  
Just as I reached Park and was about to turn, the atonal noise of  
the cars reached a level of syncopation that captured my  
attention. I slowly turned around to peer at the traffic. It was  
as though everyone were honking to the beat of some internal  
metronome. More strange still, when all of the cars blared  
together, what I had initially taken for tonelessness created a  
sort of internal harmony.   
  
A percussive note struck this brass band. The truck finally  
succumbed to the will of the NYFD and fell to its four wheels  
with a crash. The driver stood with a police officer nearby, his  
only apparent injury a mildly black eye. The man's demeanor  
was considerably more wounded, though. He held his hand to  
his mouth, and tears streamed down his face as he stared at  
something I couldn't see. For a moment I stupidly thought he  
might be moved by the operatic harmony the car horns were  
creating. Then I saw the object of his distress.  
  
Two paramedics came around the other side of the truck  
pushing a Gurney between them. A Their pace was unhurried,  
and they seemed to be move to the same unheard beat  
compelling the drivers in their cars. A third medic kneeled  
above the broken shape, performing CPR on the victim. A  
white sheet covered the twisted form, a figure that could not  
possibly have been that of a man. With each chest compression,  
bright red liquid spread on the sheet. I gawked despite myself,  
held pat by both the grisly scene and the impossible score  
beneath it.  
  
The trio of laconic healers came around to the rear door of their  
ambulance and the man on top leapt down with practiced grace,  
his back to me. He jumped in to guide while the other two  
collapsed the wheels of the stretcher and pushed it into the back  
of the vehicle. The sheet was almost entirely red. One of them  
ran up front and jumped into the cab. He hit the siren while the  
other two worked in back. After a moment, the medic who had  
been working so desperately on top of the body (for that was all  
it was, a body) reached out to pull shut the doors with blood  
soaked hands. Then time stopped, the single harmonious note  
of the horns, the siren, even the idling engines seeming to  
stretch out.  
  
The paramedic looked in my direction. I knew that he was  
looking directly at me despite the fact that the pallid man had no  
eyes. It was the figure from Studio 54, a featureless gray man  
whose lipless mouth was frozen into an eternal smile. A wave  
of nauseous vertigo struck me and I felt I was falling on watery  
knees. The figure's hand dripped gore when he grabbed the  
door handles.  
  
"Wait," I croaked.  
  
Space stretched impossibly and I thought that I might have been  
dying, that a stroke or a aneurism might have been the hidden  
cost of the paranormal abilities I kept a secret. For the first  
time since my father's death I wished that I had been born  
normal until I realized that it was not the world shifting at all, it  
was the ambulance. It was pulling away. The faceless man  
smiled his inhuman grin and slammed the doors as the vehicle  
sped past a line of police cars.  
  
At once, the world returned to normal. The siren was only a  
siren, and though everyone in traffic might have been laying on  
their horns, it was no different in tone than any Manhattan rush  
hour. As the ambulance rumbled away, I knew I only had one  
chance.  
  
I ran forward, making for the faceless man, willing strength  
into my weak legs. So single minded was my need to discover  
who or what this stalking thing was that I barely noticed the  
cop who interjected herself into my path. I flung her aside and  
continued to run. The ambulance slowed to make the turn  
away from Central Park and my hand had almost reached the  
handle when my shoulder was roughly grabbed. I spun around,  
almost losing my feet even as power flowed into my limbs from  
the force of my pursuer.  
  
Almost of its own accord, my hand reared back to teach the cop  
who grabbed me the error of his impudence. If there had been  
any chance that I could have still caught up with the ambulance  
I probably would have. I looked into the angry face of the  
policeman, at the woman I had knocked down standing behind  
him with her hand on the butt of her service revolver. All  
around me, policemen stared. I lowered my hand, and when the  
cop spun me around roughly and slapped handcuffs on my  
wrists, I made no move to resist. In the distance, the ambulance  
sped away.  
  
***  
  
  
The time with the police had been frustrating. They yelled and  
screamed about assault charges and a litany of other sins that  
could put me in prison for years. I said nothing to them, of  
course. My lawyer arrived and made things right with the  
precinct captain. The three of us laughed together as I waited  
for my driver to pull around, and the captain held my door open  
as I sat down. Behind him, the officer I knocked over in my  
haste stared daggers at me. She had a hard look, so I marked  
her face well.   
  
It was past three o'clock by the time I arrived back home. The  
doorman informed me that Pierce stumbled out sometime past  
noon. When I asked him about Emma, all he could give me was  
a blank stare.  
  
"A blonde, you say?"  
  
"That's right. Gorgeous figure. Half naked. You must have  
seen her."  
  
"'Fraid not, Mr. Shaw. Sounds like a real keeper, though."  
  
"Hm," I said. I went upstairs expecting that the woman would  
still be around. Much to my surprise, she was nowhere to be  
found, and the money I had left on the pillow was still sitting  
untouched. I frowned and went to the unmade bed. I pulled  
the pillow she'd slept upon to my face and breathed in. Her  
smell was ambrosia. Then I looked back down at the bills on  
the other pillow and realized how slow my lack of sleep had  
made me.  
  
"Shit," I said, and bolted to the study.   
  
The Hopper was not on the wall, and the safe that hid behind it  
hung open and empty. I grabbed the end of my desk. It was an  
oak slab, heavy and solid, and I crushed the edge to pulp in my  
fist before I cast it across the room as easily as a child might  
toss a toy. Though this action expended little of the energy that  
had accumulated in my body at the hands of New York's Finest,  
I still managed to badly damage both the desk and the wall.   
Fortunately, my temper tantrum was brief.  
  
How in hell had the bitch gotten into it? I went to the safe and  
peered inside. Thousands of dollars gone in a flash. However,  
the gaping maw was not entirely empty. There was a small slip  
of white paper inside. It was folded in half. I reached in and  
pulled it out.   
  
"Temper temper" was written on the outside in a script less  
feminine than one might expect from so beautiful a woman. I  
grinned and looked around the room, certain I was being spied  
on. Silly, of course. The woman wrote this long before I  
arrived home. I unfolded the slip to find seven numbers written  
inside. She was either a stupid thief or my perfect match.   
Either way, I would discover how she got into the safe. Either  
way, I would find a satisfying punishment for the transgression.   
But not today.   
  
I put the note into my shirt pocket and went back to my  
bedroom. I called my secretary to find her annoyed at my  
absence. She became more so when I had her cancel my week  
and get me on a redeye to London.   
  
"You're incorrigible, Sebastian," Elspeth said. She was the  
only of my employees who called me by my first name. I heard  
Devo playing in the background, and could imagine her bopping  
away to the small radio at her desk. She ran down the list of  
appointments that this would entail rescheduling.  
  
"They can all wait. I have to be in London tomorrow." Despite  
her complaining, I knew that Elspeth would have me on a  
Concord eight hours after I hung up. She wished me luck on  
my journey. As it would turn out, I would have plenty, though  
little of it would be good.  
  
After we had worked out the details at the office, I rested on  
the bed, surrounded by the commingled smells Emma and I had  
left behind. Yes. She would be my first call upon returning  
from Buckman's little quest. It had been nearly forty-eight  
hours since I slept, and I drifted off quickly.  
  
***  
  
A sledgehammer to the chest awakens me. My eyes flit open  
and I find flourescent lights streaking by overhead. When I try  
to take a breath, my lungs fill with bees and I want to cry. A  
million miles away, I hear car horns singing a mournful chorale.  
  
"It's Mozart," says a familiar voice beside me. "The Requiem."  
  
My head lolls to the side, even this small motion filling my body  
with agony to its pours. I see an EMT walking determinedly  
beside the Gurney I lie on. I try to tell him to turn around. I'm  
desperate to see his face, because I know he doesn't have one.   
No voice escapes my mouth, only a rasp. Something leaves  
though, something pink and alive that drools down my cheek.  
  
There's a loud crash as we careen through a set of double  
doors. The impact feels like a thousand pins, a thousand fish  
hooks pulling at once. I want to scream, but I don't. I hold it  
in. I don't want any more of my insides coming out. We come  
to a stop in the middle of a vast, white room, and I can feel hot  
wetness beneath me. I'm leaking. Good God, I'm turning  
inside out.   
  
The paramedic turns heel and walks away, and I want to beg  
him to stay but I know he wants to eat me alive. He would if he  
were in charge. He isn't.  
  
After some time alone, I lift my head. My head sticks to the  
plastic pillow beneath it, coming away with a muted, tearing  
noise. Emma stands against the wall staring at me in terror. He  
chest heaves as she hyperventilates.   
  
"Help me," I mouth. She does nothing. She only lifts her hands  
to the side of her head as though trying to protect herself from a  
sound only she can hear. She averts her eyes.   
  
I hear the doors open behind me and a number of footsteps  
enter this operating theater. I am quickly surrounded by nurses  
and orderlies in white. They prepare instruments silently,  
almost ignoring my presence. The wetness beneath me is  
saturating, and I hear a steady drip splat against the floor. As I  
wait for help, the dripping becomes a steady flow, the flow a  
shower. I'm not leaking, I'm pouring out of myself. When the  
liquid beneath me begins to squirm with a life of its own, thick  
tears begin leak from my eyes.  
  
I look back to Emma, and her pale skin has blanched. She has  
pushed herself against the wall, nearly into it. Whatever horror  
she sees birthing from me is driving her mad. I summon all of  
my strength.  
  
"I'm bleeding," I manage.  
  
"It's all right." I turn my head. My father is lying beside me, a  
tube running from his arm. "You gave me your blood once.   
Now I give you mine."  
  
"No. No. It's poison," I say. The door opens behind me  
again, and this time Emma screams. She screams in horror and  
revulsion.  
  
"Poison?" A deep voice, bass dragged over gravel, speaks  
behind me. Emma continues to scream. The man with the  
voice moves in front of me. He is dressed in the green scrubs of  
a doctor, masked and capped, only his eyes are visible. They  
are black. "Yes, poison. You are filled with poison."  
  
The Doctor holds out his hand and a nurse hands him an  
instrument. The horrifying blade is fashioned from rusted brass  
or gold, the shape of a crescent moon. Emma's screams turn to  
shrieking, shrill and hysterical.   
  
"This is not for you, Emma Frost," growls the Doctor. "Not  
for your eyes. Begone." Emma's cries cease and the man turns  
back to me.   
  
"Now. The time has come, Shaw. We must cut the poison  
out."   
  
He reaches down with the sickle and my torso explodes in  
watery fire. I hear the brittle crunch of my rips, and my scream  
is wet. It tastes of copper and bile. I turn back to my father.   
He smiles at me lovingly from where he sits on the edge of his  
stretcher. In his hands is LeMarchand's Box.  
  
"You'll get used to it, boy. You'll find you can get used to  
anything."  
  
***  
  
I stumbled across my apartment in the dark, my breathing  
ragged, the images of the dream clinging. When I reached for  
the scotch I knocked it from the shelf and it shattered on the  
floor. Glass cut my foot, the liquor scalding even more. I  
found the pain brought me out of the dream, and for that I was  
grateful. The vodka was more willing, so I drank deeply  
straight from the bottle. I paused for breath, then I drank again,  
this time swallowing the Valium I had grabbed from the  
medicine cabinet as well. At last my heart began to slow.  
  
The black-eyed doctor's voice haunted me, but not as much as  
my old man's. He hated it when I called him that. Mortality  
was the only thing that had frightened him.  
  
I took another gulp and went to my closet. I didn't need to  
leave for JFK for another two hours, but I packed nonetheless.   
The man I sought, Constantine, had been too afraid to solve the  
puzzle box. What was there to be afraid of? To my addled,  
post-nightmare mind, any mystery worth fearing was worth  
solving. Though I was tired and unrested, there would be no  
sleep before I left for London. There would be no rest for the  
wicked.  
  
________________________________________________________________  
  
To be continued . . . 


	3. The Bishop

This story is intended for mature readers. Chris Claremont,   
Alan Moore and Clive Barker created many of the characters  
featured herein, and Marvel Comics, DC Comics and Dimension   
Films control the rights to them - no challenge to existing  
copyrights is intended. The previous chapters are archived  
at the Fonts of Wisdom (home.att.net/~lubakmetyk), and at  
fanfiction.net. Feedback is very much appreciated at  
XanderDG@hotmail.com.  
  
________________________________________________  
HELLRAISER: HELLFIRE  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
_________________________________________________  
  
3  
  
Though there were no dirty snowdrifts or piles of melting slush  
here, London still felt more like a city under the yoke of winter  
than New York did. A thin drizzle fell slowly, constantly. The  
cold permeated the air, chilling me to the bone. I pulled my  
black coat close around me and mused that I would have  
preferred a storm, all hail and thunder and lightening. I didn't  
realize that one was almost upon me.  
  
The neighborhood was little better than a slum, and I wished  
that I hadn't stepped out of the cab early to get a lay of the  
land. Even in the rain, the smell of garbage was pervasive. I  
passed empty storefronts with shattered glass in the windows  
and structures blackened by fire. There were cars stripped in  
the street. Every surface was covered in graffiti: "PAKIS GO  
HOME," one eloquently advised. "NF" shouted another.   
There had been a high school in Philly, North Fulton, whose  
football team had been fond of spray painting the same legend.   
I didn't think this was by the same group.  
  
Refuse collected in the storm drains, so there was a good inch  
of water out on the road. I might have been concerned about  
getting splashed by a passing auto or lorry, as the natives called  
them, but nobody seemed to drive in Paddington on a Saturday  
morning. I glanced at the address in my pocket again; the ink  
was running in the wet. Still, it was legible. I looked at the  
small tourist map I purchased at the airport, turned a corner  
and continued on my way.  
  
Looking at maps in rough locales is never a good idea,  
particularly when one is wearing an eight-thousand-dollar  
Burberry coat. Across the pockmarked road were three boys  
with the look of local toughs. Their heads were shaved,  
emphasizing their thick, stupid brows. They all wore blue  
jackets with flags on the shoulder, black pants, and jackboots  
with white laces. A gang, perhaps the poets behind the local  
wall art. Knowing I shouldn't, that time was of the essence, I  
nodded over to them and smiled. Then I slowed to a stroll.   
True to form, the skinheads began to pace me on the other side  
of the street. They spoke quietly to each other, egging one-  
another on. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or a lizard brain  
desire for masculine dominance - I wasn't sure of the "whys"  
of my actions, but what did they matter, really?  
  
There was a thin alley between two buildings up ahead and I  
turned down it. It was heaped with garbage, and it occurred to  
me that the momentary enjoyment I was about to receive was  
probably not worth the damage to my shoes. I stepped over the  
sloughed-off refuse as best I could and made my way deep into  
the fissure. Before I even reached the end, I heard footsteps  
behind me, the boys' haphazard attempts at stealth as  
successful as a herd of rhino. I noticed I had an audience.   
There were two children beyond the wooden fence at the end  
of the alley. One was an Indian boy, the other pale, with dark  
hair and blue eyes. I winked at them and turned around.   
  
For a moment, my "pursuers" stopped like deer in headlights.   
Then they remembered that *they* were mugging *me*.  
  
"Oi!" belched one. "You some kinda queer then!? Lookin' for  
a bit'a roughie!?!" The three began to fan out, less concerned  
for their shoes than I had been.  
  
"We'll give it to ya rough, missie!" shouted the biggest one.  
  
"Give us yur to-dos and maybe you'll be walkin' outa here,"  
said the first. The one who hadn't spoken was only a boy, little  
older than the kids on the other side of the fence. While the  
two bruisers would only end up lying to their friends about  
what happened today (presuming I left them with the ability to  
speak), the frightened boy might still be taught a lesson.  
  
"Let me make you an alternate proposal, you ridiculous little  
strumpet," I said mildly. The large one pulled a short length of  
pipe from his waistband, surging forward, but doubt licked the  
leader's face. I focused on him and ignored the charging  
gorilla. "Why don't you take off your clothes right now, and  
after I treat you like the other children in juvenile did, I'll let  
you walk away from this."   
  
The leader's mouth fell to an almost comical doughnut,  
exacerbated by the younger one's snort. I couldn't enjoy the  
moment, though, the big one was on me.  
  
He shoved me back with all his might, and I almost toppled  
over a mound of garbage.  
  
"Break him, Arnie!" yelled the leader, still rooted in place.   
The gorilla reared back with his pipe while I was off balance  
and brought it down in a wide arc, slow as a B-52. I could  
have moved, of course, but where would the fun in that have  
been?  
  
There was a hollow clang when the steel hit my forehead, and I  
heard one of the kids behind the fence screech and run away.   
Even the other skinheads paused in their advance, presuming  
that the scrap was over before it really began. There were  
mistaken. I held the pose for a moment, my head theatrically  
held back, allowing the strength from the blow to course into  
my muscles. Then I turned back to the ape with a wide smile  
on my face.  
  
"This is going to hurt," I told him.  
  
"Christ, Johnny!" he screamed. I grabbed the boy by the arm  
and yanked the pipe from his grasp. He held up his other hand  
to ward off a blow, but it never came. I pulled a Superman and  
bent the pipe for all to see. Then I threw the big one into the  
brick edifice of the adjoining building. He landed hard enough  
to crumble the mortar.  
  
The leader, Johnny, was a whelp, but he wasn't a cowardly  
one. He whipped a butterfly knife from his pocket and  
charged. He tried to cut me but I danced around his unskilled  
attack and slapped his face. Enraged, he attacked again, so I  
slapped him harder before I grabbed him by the throat and  
lifted him off the ground. I looked over at the smallest one,  
staring at me with wide, wet eyes.  
  
"You see, boy? There is always someone bigger." I toyed with  
the notion of snapping Johnny's neck, but I had been seen by  
the kids beyond the fence, and needless complications were the  
last thing I needed. Instead, I tossed him casually by his friend,  
where he coughed and gasped for breath. Finally I went to the  
young one and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.  
  
"Don't let me catch you running around with this lot  
anymore," I said, doing my best super hero. When I was done  
here, I could go and save people from a burning building or  
rescue a cat from a tree. "There's a good lad." Tears were  
flowing freely down the kid's face. I reached up and tousled  
his hair paternally when he cut my hand with the knife he was  
concealing in his palm.  
  
I cried out, jerking my hand protectively to my chest and the  
boy turned and ran, screaming at the top of his lungs. The little  
bastard cut the back of my hand almost to the bone. Blood  
flowed, and I pulled a handkerchief from my pocket, pressing  
it hard into the wound. The affectation of carrying around a  
kerchief was something I'd taken from the Club - I was a  
sleeve man left to my own devices - but now I was thankful.   
Instead of giving a chase, I was so enraged that I nearly went  
back to finish off the other two.   
  
Then I thought about the box, and my quest for Buckman. I  
had to get to Constantine and a run in with the London police  
would not expedite matters. I removed the cloth and looked at  
the cut on my hand. Now I'd shed blood for LeMarchand's  
Box - whatever it held had better damn well be worth it.  
  
I reapplied pressure to the laceration and stormed out of the  
alley, the eyes of the kid behind the gate heavy on my back.  
  
***  
  
My anger and annoyance made me careless, and I became  
hopelessly lost. I walked back and forth through the  
neighborhood. I stopped at a small druggist's to pick up a  
bandage for my hand and to ask directions, but I couldn't  
understand what the foreign cashier was telling me. Foreign?   
I had to chuckle at the irony. By the time I finally found the  
address Chantel had written down, now little more than a blue  
splotch on the expensive, fibrous stationary of the Club, I was  
chilled to the bone and my hand was a hornets nest.  
  
The building was gray, of course. It seemed that everything in  
London was. It was a brick structure, four floors tall. There  
was a butcher shop on the street level. The meats and cheeses  
displayed in the window indicated that the place was on its last  
legs. I looked inside to find an ancient Asian man staring at  
me from behind the counter. He offered no greeting. The door  
to the building was next to the shop's entrance, and I opened  
the glass door and went inside.  
  
Narrow and claustrophobic, the stairwell smelled of piss. Paint  
was peeling inside, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood  
on end as soon as I crossed the threshold. There was  
something not right about the building, something wrong on a  
subliminal level. I looked up the stairs and heard a woman  
moan from up in the darkness - none of the hall lights seemed  
to be working.  
  
"Naturally," I said. I rubbed the back of my hand and walked  
up, the soft wood squeaking plaintively under my weight. At  
least I didn't need to go all the way to the top.  
  
At the landing of the second floor, I turned to walk down the  
hall when another moan drifted down. The sound was deep  
and wanton, but also pained. I looked down the hall. It was  
thick with shadows. Only one of the flourescent bulbs  
flickered with an audible buzz, bathing the green walls in an  
illusory strobe. The window at the end of the hall was taped  
over. Another moan. A howl, really, and there were  
consonants in the noise - something was being said. I began to  
climb the stairs when the noise stopped abruptly.   
  
Something crashed in one of the apartments - it sounded like a  
dresser falling over - and the scream stopped in mid-breath.   
There had been enough distractions today. I turned and walked  
down the hall of the second floor.  
  
Evens were on the left, and odds the right. The burgundy  
carpet was a jigsaw puzzle of dark stains, and the smells of  
excrement, cigarette smoke and stale beer were heavy. 209.   
211. The door of 213 was open. The apartment was a studio,  
and a man inside was calmly shooting up. He held an elastic  
band wrapped around his slim upper arm tightly in his teeth,  
and he punctured a black vein with a syringe, depressing the  
plunger in a practiced motion. He withdrew the needle. A thin  
jet of blood squirted straight up when he opened his mouth and  
released the latex tourniquet. I looked up and saw that the  
ceiling was covered in cris-cross brown patterns that looked  
somehow familiar. The man looked out at me, his eyelids  
fluttering.  
  
"Old faithful, boss," he said. He smiled and laid back on his  
mattress. I turned away and continued down the hall. 215.   
Finally, 217. The apartment I was looking for. I could hear  
music on the other side of the warped, plywood door.   
Something loud and driving. Why on earth would Buckman  
want anything from the kind of man who would live in a rat  
trap like this? I knocked on the door like a cop, three loud raps  
of my knuckles.  
  
After a moment, the music cut out with a scratch on vinyl. I  
knocked again.  
  
"Bollocks on it! I'm coming, Chas!" Surprisingly, there was  
no noise of locks disengaging. This man must have been  
confident or stupid not to lock his doors in an environment like  
this. The door opened and a blond man frowned up at me. His  
hair was spiky, but one side was flat as though he were only  
lately lying on his side. He wore a T-shirt, boxer shorts, and  
his eyes were rimmed in the kind of red that speaks more of  
tears than drugs. A cigarette dangled from his lips. The man  
looked neither surprised nor intimidated by my appearance at  
his door.  
  
"Are you John Constantine?"  
  
"Depends on who's asking."  
  
"My name is Shaw, and I'm here on business. I understand  
correctly, you recently . . ."  
  
"If you're here on business you can buy us a cuppa, can't you,"  
he interjected, and he shut the door in my face. I was so  
surprised by the audacity of the action that I didn't even have  
time to become angry. A minute later, Constantine reappeared  
with pants on and a brown trench coat more suited to the  
weather than my own. He brushed past me and shut his door,  
ambling down the hall.  
  
"Let's go, gramps," he said. He never locked his door, and if  
the caterwauling from upstairs fazed him, it didn't show.  
  
***  
  
"So you're one of the old queen's boys then," he said.   
Constantine's manner was so disarming that it was difficult to  
tell if this was meant as a challenge or a term of affection. If  
Buckman, the old queen in question, was correct about this  
man being in the con game, then he must have been very good  
at his vocation.   
  
As we walked through the drizzling wasteland from his  
apartment to a nearby cafe we talked about nothing at all. My  
flight, his life on the dole, even the weather ("It'll piss down  
like this 'til May or so," he said, "then we'll get a right rain.").   
Through it all, he steered conversation away from my line of  
questioning and to more prosaic concerns. Now, as we sat  
across from one another, he with strong tea, myself with coffee  
so weak it did not deserve the title, it was time to get to  
business. I reached out and lit his cigarette.  
  
"You know the Club?" I asked.  
  
"I'd rather wager I know the Hellfire Club a bit better than  
you, Sebastian. The old git wanted me to come to New York a  
few years ago to give him some lessons." I laughed, but  
Constantine didn't blink. Perhaps he was insane. "I know that  
your club is made up of a bunch of rich blokes with delusions  
of grandeur. I know that Eddie Buckman has his fingers in a  
lot of very twisted pies, and that he's a paranoid convinced that  
foreigners and mutants are out to get him." I made sure not to  
blink at the word.  
  
"There's more, Shaw. I know that as much money and  
influence and power as he does have, there are a lot of things  
your King doesn't know shit about. He doesn't admit that, you  
understand. He comes off like he's looked into the abyss, like  
he's fucking been there, but it's all a scam. When he's unsure  
of the consequences of his little hedge magics, he uses an  
apprentice for the dirty work. Do you understand me, Shaw?"   
The question hung in the air between us.  
  
"He doesn't take the risks. Just the gains," Constantine  
concluded.  
  
"Maybe so," I said. "Either way, I have significant resources  
of my own, so if you answer my questions, you'll never need  
another welfare check."  
  
"Your funeral. Cash and carry," he answered. "Shoot."  
  
"I'm looking for a box. A puzzle box built by a man named  
LeMarchand.."   
  
He looked at me and for the shadow of a moment a real  
sadness crept across his face. Then he shook his head and  
stood, stubbing out his butt.  
  
"Thanks for the tea. Ta." He made to walk out and I realized  
that I would have to be more direct.  
  
"The hell . . ." Constantine cried when I threw him back into  
the booth. The owner of the diner, a burly man with a thick  
moustache, made to run around the counter. He carried a  
funny bat, flat and wide in his hands. I turned to him.  
  
"You're going to want to go have a smoke in back, friend. A  
good long puff." Constantine tried to move around me and I  
shoved him back into the seat. The cook looked at both of us  
in turn.  
  
"Sorry, Johnnie," he said. He walked through the swinging  
door to the kitchen. When he was gone, I turned back to the  
blond man. His face was not the mask of fear I expected. If  
anything, it was contemptuous. No matter.  
  
"Mr. Constantine, I would very much like to pay you to assist  
me in finding Le Marchand's Box. I know you have some idea  
where it is, because I know you possessed it at one time. I  
require that information. I will have it."  
  
"LeMarchand's Box?"  
  
"That's right, John. This can be very easy."  
  
"Right. Give us a pen." I handed one to him and he scribbled  
an address. To my surprise, it wasn't far off.  
  
"What's this?"  
  
"It's an antique shop 'round in Notting Hill. I know for an  
absolute fact that they have a LeMarchand puzzle box." He  
stood up and faced me. "In fact, if you go through all the  
shops over there, I figure you'll find ten, maybe fifteen  
LeMarchand's. Good errand boy'll bring back a bloody  
bouquet of the things."  
  
"You don't want to trifle with me, Constantine. The box I  
want . . ."  
  
"That's the fucking point, boyo! You don't have any  
conception of what you're asking for! It's not 'LeMarchand's  
Box,' Shaw. It's the fucking Lament. Do you know what it is,  
Shaw? Do you have any notion of what the Lament  
Configuration can do?"  
  
"I, I . . ."  
  
"Of course not. Because it doesn't serve the White King's  
purpose for you to know what he's gotten you into,"  
Constantine grinned. "I don't know you, Sebastian, and I don't  
give two shites about your life. But I know that the Lament  
only brings misery and suffering to those who seek it. I know  
that whoever finds the Gashes will be owned by them forever.  
*Forever*, Shaw. Whatever Buckman has promised you is not  
worth the price you'll pay."  
  
"What are the Gashes?" I asked.  
  
"Jesus. Leave it alone, man. You don't want to know."  
  
"I will know, Constantine. I intend to know why Buckman  
sent me after the box, and I'll know why you're so keen to  
keep me away from it. Now tell me where it is."  
  
He shook his head and lit another cigarette. He told me that he  
didn't know exactly, that when it's returned to its rightful  
guardian, the Lament picks its own resting place. He said that  
it probably already knew I was looking for it, and that it would  
reveal itself in time.  
  
"But if you really need to make another step to be ready for it,  
try Bangkok. There's a good chance it's there, Shaw, and you  
probably deserve what it'll give you. Ta." He told me an  
address in the Thai capital as he put on his coat and walked to  
the door.  
  
"'What it will give me,' Constantine?" I asked. I had to get in  
my shot. "How would you know? You never had the nerve to  
solve the puzzle."  
  
"That what he told you, sonny?" He didn't turn around. "I  
solved it well enough. Down in Newcastle. I thought it would  
give up the answers I needed for a spot of trouble I was having.   
It gave me answers, all right. All I could take and more." John  
Constantine walked away into the mist, and I found myself  
with more questions than when I met him.  
  
***  
  
My driver was a rotund man who insisted on telling me five  
hundred years of history for every site we passed. There were  
a great many of them over the hour it took to get back to  
Gatwick. I tuned him out to think of my own artifact, my sleep  
deprived mind turning and turning the puzzle pieces it had  
been given. The names swirled like mist, the puzzle box  
turning along with them whenever I closed my eyes.   
LeMarchand, De L'Isle, Constantine, Lament, Gashes. The  
Gashes most of all. Buckman had talked about guardians -  
were these the same things that Constantine alluded to? I was  
not naive enough to think the supernatural impossible. I had  
seen and experienced too much for that, but supernatural  
golems seemed unlikely.   
  
All ancient treasures were protected curses and the like. They  
were only cultural metaphors so ingrained in legend that the  
bad luck that often followed the possessor of such things was  
psychologically preordained. Stories like that were the wives  
tales that kept children out of storm cellars. Of course, those  
cellars were always where the Christmas presents were hidden.   
Whatever was powerful enough to require a gatekeeper was  
worth having. I paid the cab driver, and walked into the  
terminal.  
  
"Your tickets seem to be in order, Mr. Shaw," said the perky  
girl behind the counter. She began to slide my boarding pass  
to me. I stilled her by placing my hand atop her own. Her  
flesh was deliciously warm after the chill outside.  
  
"I have to make a change. When is the next nonstop to  
Bangkok?" She looked at me a bit too long, then down at her  
directory until she found the flight. I managed to wrangle a  
first class seat where none was to be had, and had the layover  
been any longer, I might have tried to get even more. Such  
were the advantages of wealth. As it was, though, I only had  
an hour or so and customs was a bear. I said goodbye to the  
English rose and walked to the international terminal.  
  
Completely unable to sleep in the air, I bought the new George  
Stark novel at the duty-free shop and wondered how long it  
would be before my lack of rest caught up with me. It had  
been something more than two days since I'd had a good  
night's sleep, and it might be another two before I did. Had I  
been thinking, I would have asked Constantine's neighbor  
where to find some coke. Fasting and a lack of sleep was a key  
component to any vision quest, and I was coming perilously  
close to the dream state. I bought a coffee.   
  
There was a surprise waiting for me on the other side of  
customs. I made my way through the line, thinner here than it  
had been at JFK, but still incredibly slow. They called my  
flight over the PA, and it was clear that a number of others  
were also last minute flyers. These were all business people  
traveling for work. Winter still held the world in its grasp  
north of the equator, and people weren't much for tourism in  
the cold. Most of my companions in the day's one mile club  
were dressed as I was (though less soaked and out of sorts),  
and a plane must have just landed because a throng of business  
people passed me by coming the other way. I didn't see him  
until I had nearly run into him.  
  
The Rook stood directly in my path, a thin grin on his pale  
face. He wore what might have been the same immaculate  
black suit as he had at 54. Regarding me with his large,  
unblinking eyes, he did not so much as nod when I approached  
- he only stood quietly, an island in the river of foot traffic.   
There was a large nylon bag hung over his shoulder. Just as I  
arrived in front of him, an electronic trill sounded from within  
the satchel. Never taking his eyes from my face, the Rook  
flipped open the top and pulled a telephone handset from  
within. He handed it to me.  
  
I hadn't used one of the new satellite phones before, and I  
could feel the eyes of the other passengers regarding me  
curiously as they passed. I took it so gingerly that it must have  
looked as though I didn't trust the apparatus. I slowly put it to  
my ear. There was a static noise in the receiver that sounded  
like pine straw on a campfire.  
  
"Hello?" I said. The Rook stared calmly, unperturbed when  
my plane was announced again. "Hello?"  
  
"Where is the box?" asked Edward Buckman. "Why are you  
going to Thailand?"  
  
"Constantine didn't have it. You're having me watched?" I  
felt anger begin to rise despite myself.  
  
"Of course I am, you idiot. My eyes and ears span this world  
and nothing is secret from me. You have no thoughts I do not  
comprehend before you think them, Shaw. Never forget that.   
Now tell me, why are you going to Thailand?"  
  
I thought to answer with the flaw in his question - that he  
should have known already since he was so all seeing. The  
little worm thought himself a spider in the midst of a web,  
sending out minions to do his work. I would not comply so  
easily, reward or no. I said none of this. The Rook's  
impassive, grinning face put me right off speaking my mind.   
Instead:  
  
"He said that the box knew when someone was seeking it.   
That it would be waiting in Bangkok. He gave me an address."  
  
"An address? Good. Good. I didn't think the little rascal  
would have it himself. He probably tried to throw it out to sea,  
the coward. You are not a coward, are you Shaw?" The static  
on the phone hissed and whirred like the whispering of the old.  
  
"I'm not, Mr. Buckman." I didn't tell him that I doubted  
Constantine was either.  
  
"Good. That's why I've made you my champion in this. For  
your courage. That is why I will offer you rewards your  
imagination can only begin to describe. Not a coward. Not a  
coward. I do hope you're not a fool, either." My flight was  
given its last boarding call, but the Rook only continued to  
stare. I swear the small man never blinked at all.  
  
"No, White King. I am no fool."  
  
"Than stop imagining what must be in my puzzle box, Shaw.   
It's like Blackbeard, is it not? You may have any room in my  
house but one. Even a moment in that threshold means your  
doom. You understand, don't you? To solve my puzzle means  
an end to your future. And remember, young man."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I have my eyes on you always." For a moment, there was only  
the whispering static. Then the Rook reached up, plucked the  
phone from my ear and replaced it in the bag. He lifted his  
arm and tapped his watch twice. I held his eyes for a moment,  
anger growing out of my impotence with Buckland, but the  
Rook would not budge. He only stood there, the ticking of his  
wristwatch barely audible as he held it by his right ear.   
  
I ran for my gate and barely made the plane on time.  
  
***  
  
The soup scalded my tongue, but even the pain did not dull the  
unusual taste of the exotic broth. "An idiot," Buckman had  
called me. I stood at the noodle cart eating voraciously - the  
flight had taken almost eighteen hours, and beyond peanuts  
and bourbon, the airplane food held no appeal. I needn't have  
worried, though. Less than a dollar bought me a feast of  
noodles and spices, and I could feel the hot concoction  
refreshing my tired body from within. If only I could find a  
tailor, a bed and a barber, I might get back to being myself. I  
turned around to look at the wide street that ran along the edge  
of the Chao Phraya River.  
  
The air along the boulevard was perfumed in a thousand alien  
aromas, and it seemed that an endless array of people paraded  
back and forth. They bought food or cologne or imitation  
Gucci from the street vendors who shouted at the passing  
tourists. Some bartered, some did not. Locals did not come to  
this little stretch by the river, not those who had nothing to sell  
at any rate. They manned carts, moved supplies and hawked  
wares both legal and ill.   
  
American servicemen were the most numerous group of  
tourists, Navy mostly, followed by the Japanese. The rest of  
the young faces looking gluttonously around were the scions of  
the rich blowing their graduation money to expand their minds  
in the East. They were my age, mostly, but it seemed as  
though they were from a different planet. Other Asians  
wandered about making this a wicked melting pot, for it wasn't  
this avenue that most of the assembled had came to Bangkok  
for. This city wasn't a shopping destination, unless you were  
shopping for flesh.  
  
I finished my bowl, surprisingly full. The meal was so good  
that I was tempted to lean over the lip of the small man's cart.   
On reflection, it was probably best not to see the wizard behind  
that particular curtain. Better to begin my walk - I had a ways  
to go.  
  
The address that Constantine had given me was miles north of  
the royal palace in the industrial section of town. The Luk  
Luang tributary ran from the Phraya deep into northern  
Bangkok. Heavy junks and barges ran up and down the water  
at all hours, picking up shipments at the warehouses and  
running them to ports throughout Asia. It was to one of these  
depots that Constantine sent me. It was fine; the sites along  
my route were much more to my liking than the pomp and  
circumstance of the daytime tourist pathways.  
  
Prostitution was not legal under the rule of the King, but was  
neither it hidden nor confined to street corners in the dead of  
night. Bangkok's red light district was famous the world over  
for its absolute depravity, and as I strolled its alleys in my shirt  
sleeves, I could see why. Every building's lower floor was  
lined with windows, and in each of them were the children of  
the night. I stood for a moment with a group of men staring at  
a young girl who could not have been fifteen. She wore her  
hair in pigtails, and the rouge on her cheeks cut a striking  
contrast to the schoolgirl skirt around her waist. If only I had  
more time . . .  
  
The crowds were thickest amongst the whores, and less so the  
deeper one walked into the morally blind world. Soon, the  
figures in the windows were more haggard and worldly wise.   
The barkers in front of the cat houses cried out in their broken  
English/Thai/Japanese about the debasements performed  
within. They yelled that no matter how jaded a man you might  
have been, what you would witness inside would reawaken the  
lust in your marrow. Their talk of snakes and ping-pong balls  
only brought a grin to my face. These carneys underestimated  
my weariness.   
  
Even these petty perversions ended and I passed out of the  
district, only the most hardened continuing along my path. The  
ornate window dressings gave way to darkened alleys and  
dockside bars. The come-ons here were less well rehearsed.   
As I rounded a corner, I heard voices from an alcove, low and  
mean. The recess was dark, but I saw the shadows ripping and  
clawing at one another, wet and violent. Still, I continued the  
path.  
  
The buildings were low and squat, the vicissitudes of Thai  
architecture giving way to the blockiness of utility. I walked  
along the Luk Luang, the massive cranes used for transporting  
cargo reaching for the sky like the skeletons of ancient gods.   
The warehouses were mostly empty, and few barges were out  
on the water.   
  
I found Samsen, my road, and turned up the street. The climes  
were squalid, and fires burned in oil drums, surrounded by the  
sleeping forms of the homeless and unemployed. The  
warehouses here were burned out, and the smell of oil and  
gasoline was heavy in the air. When I arrived at the address  
Constantine gave me, it was only an empty lot filled with  
weeds.  
  
"Son of a bitch!" I shouted. I kicked one of the drums, sending  
it spiraling through the air in a rain of sparks. I shouted more,  
swearing revenge on the lousy Britain. A group of old men  
who had been sleeping around the collective warmth shouted  
in alarm. The rose and stumbled away as quickly as they  
could.  
  
Truly possessed by my rage, I grabbed hold of another of the  
burning drums. Unmindful of the searing pain tearing my  
hands, I hurled it after the terrified men. It exploded upon  
hitting the ground. The men dashed around the flaming debris  
in the midst of the avenue. I continued my assault, lashing out  
at everything in my path.  
  
When the final drum was prostrate to my fury, I leaned against  
a fence, breathing heavily. I had come around the world for  
nothing, a pawn in a game between two chess players inferior  
to me. Buckland called me "an idiot." "An idiot." Perhaps he  
was right.   
  
"Spare any change, boss?" I nearly jumped out of my skin. I  
looked around to find a homeless man sitting on a small cart.   
He had no legs, and his makeshift transportation's wheels  
squeaked as he dragged himself toward me. "Big change?   
Little change? Make no difference."  
  
My hand was smarting, and the last thing I wanted was to deal  
with some drunk cripple. "Off with you," I said.  
  
"You give money, maybe I help you."  
  
"I'm beyond help, I'm afraid."  
  
"Maybe so. Maybe so," he said, "but I know what you need."   
I reached into my pocket, wincing when my hand brushed over  
the fabric, and fished out my change from the noodle stand.   
The little man took it eagerly.  
  
"What might that be?"  
  
"You looking for something. You need to find what you  
looking for." The little man started laughing, loud and long.   
  
"No shit," I said. I was going to reach down and take my  
change back when I saw something beyond the fire burning in  
the middle of the road. On the other side of the heat and  
flames was a figure wearing a long, wet black coat. His teeth  
glinted in the light, and he nodded to me as I stepped forward.   
  
It was the faceless man. The cripple laughed on and on.  
  
"Why are you following me?" I demanded. The faceless man  
only stood his ground, the air between us shimmering in the  
heat. "Are you working for Buckman?" The figure turned and  
walked away.  
  
"Got to find what you seeking," laughed the cripple. I ran  
forward, jumping over the flames and chasing the faceless  
man. He ran as well.  
  
***  
  
He was always close enough that I could see him, never so near  
that I could grasp his coat tail and bring my pursuit to a  
conclusion. We ran through the streets, through the red light  
district and past the docks. We charged across the Chao and  
around the palace, the Royal Guard disinterested in our private  
game of hide 'n seek. If the stoic soldiers noticed that my  
mark had no eyes, no nose, nothing on his gray face save a set  
of grinning teeth, they showed no sign.  
  
The figure ran through a shopping mall, and I followed him  
through, the glaring lights stunning me. All the faces I passed  
seemed to regard me impassively, as though they were  
watching a film and nothing more. We escaped the shopping  
area and ran deeper into the city. We ran past a karaoke bar.   
At least twenty youths sat on Vespas out front, all of them  
wearing sunglasses despite the night. They pulled out just as I  
ran by, and for a moment I was completely surrounded by them  
in the street, blinded.  
  
As quickly as the swarm had begun, it ended, and it seemed  
that I was alone in the most desolate and empty part of any  
city. A rail yard stretched before me and I walked toward it. A  
rational part of my mind shouted that the line of sleep  
depravation had been crossed, that dream and waking were  
becoming indistinguishable. I silenced the voice when I saw  
light leaking from under the door of a boxcar up ahead.  
  
There was a large man standing in front of the car, easily six-  
feet-ten, and he looked me up and down when I approached.   
Finally, he barked something at me in Thai.  
  
"I don't understand," I said. "Have you seen . . ."  
  
The bouncer held out his hand, and I understood the  
universality of the gesture well enough. I pulled out my  
billfold and counted out money until the man was satisfied. A  
great many notes filled the giant's hand before he knocked  
twice against the side of the car. The door slid open only wide  
enough for me to slip through, a sweet aroma wafting from  
inside. I stepped up into the red lighted space.  
  
Cots and couches filled the room, and tapestries strung from  
the ceiling separated spaces in the car, creating rooms. Men  
and women lied around on the beds and pillows, contented  
expressions lolling across their boneless countenances. I stood  
quietly, unsure of what to do or say until a beautiful woman of  
Chinese ancestry approached me. She was wearing a jade  
Suzy Wong dress embroidered with a pattern of gold filigree  
that was familiar, and her eyes were black as coal. She smiled  
and took my hands, leading me toward one of the fabric walls.  
  
We went around to the other side, and she slowly pushed me  
back on a small couch with an ornate houka beside it, four  
pipes snaking out from the central cylinder. The pleasant  
smile never left her face as she pulled a packet wrapped in foil  
from a pocket in her tiny dress. She unwrapped a small, black  
marble that resembled tar more than anything else and handed  
it to me. The gummy stuff smelled like roses. The young  
woman worked on the apparatus, lighting a fire inside it, then  
took the marble and placed it in the top.  
  
She smoothed the hair on my sweaty forehead, and ran her  
fingers along my stubbled cheeks. Then she handed me the  
pipe. I breathed in the floral vapors, pulling them deep into my  
lungs. Opium had virtually disappeared from the world of the  
twentieth century. Heroin was cheaper to produce, and  
infinitely more addictive. It simply made no economic sense  
to go through the time-consuming process of coaxing droplets  
of nectar from the beautiful red flowers in the modern age.   
  
I inhaled again and my cheeks grew numb. I felt the world  
falling away as I stared at the beautiful girl. Her lips were so  
red, so glossed that they glowed in the muted light. I realized  
why the embroidery on her dress was so familiar - the  
swooping, spiraling pattern was the same as the one on  
LeMarchand's gilded puzzle box. I drew from the houka a  
third time, and then the woman took the pipe from my  
unwilling hand, pulling me to my feet.  
  
Without a word, she led me back through the central room. I  
felt light on my feet, as though I were floating through a  
flowery afterworld. I glanced down at the people lying on their  
couches, at the awkward way that they were positioned, arms  
and legs and heads cast at obscene angles. I looked at the red  
bulb hanging from the ceiling and realized that the light was  
crimson because the bulb was covered in blood. They were all  
dead, laid out in an orgy of flesh, an abattoir tableau parodying  
wanton pleasure.   
  
Stumbling to the door, I made for an escape when the girl  
grabbed my arm. Her grip was steel, and I would have  
attempted to fight her if it wasn't for her angelic smile. It was  
calming. It never fell, even when she stepped over the dead.   
  
She led me to the other side of the car, past tapestries and  
rooms, far further than we should have been able to go in the  
constricted space of a train car. When we passed a mirror, I  
was shocked at my appearance. My face was drawn, my eyes  
wide and wild. Sweat had soaked through my shirt and my lips  
were dry and cracked. At last, we came to a room.  
  
There was a simple table in the middle, with two simple  
wooden chairs facing each other. The woman took me to one  
of them and sat me down. She leaned down to kiss me, her  
tongue hot in my mouth. I closed my eyes as she sat astride me,  
writhing gently. Then she bit my lip, hard enough to draw  
blood. I cried out, my eyes bolting open and for a moment her  
flawless brown skin was gray and lifeless. Her eyes were open,  
too. The lids had been cut away, so they couldn't close.  
  
I pushed her back and she stumbled, hair falling into her face.   
I was ready to stand and fight when she brushed it back. Her  
face was normal. There was a thin line of blood on her lips,  
my blood, and she flicked her tongue over it. She smiled again  
and walked out of the room.  
  
The passage of time was impossible to track. My lip throbbed.   
So did my hand, but the pain was distant and illusory. The  
opium made everything dreamlike, and after a time my eyes  
became heavy despite my fear. They drifted closed for only a  
moment before I heard a voice.  
  
"What's your pleasure, sir?" An ancient man sat before me.   
He might have been Thai or Chinese, but he could also have  
been white or something else all together. A thin beard  
dangled from his chin, and he regarded me curiously with his  
fingers steepled in front of him.  
  
"What's your pleasure?" he asked again.  
  
"I've come for something," I mumbled. "A box. A puzzle  
box."  
  
"Ah. A puzzle box. They are rare nowadays. Very pricey.   
Most expensive."  
  
"I can pay. I'll pay whatever the price."  
  
"Will you? Will you indeed?"  
  
"Whatever the price." He nodded and placed the Lament  
Configuration on the table with a hollow click. The box was  
smaller than I expected, the familiar whirling golden pattern  
covering its faces less mystifying so close up. I reached  
forward and took hold of it, and the ancient man smiled.  
  
"Your father will be proud, Mr. Shaw," he said. "Use the back  
door on the way out."  
  
***  
  
I have always been a slave to instant gratification. Buckman  
had called me and idiot, but I wasn't insipid enough to blithely  
bring him the prize. He picked the wrong man for that. I held  
the box greedily as I reeled through the train yard, the birds  
chirping out their pre-dawn songs. My flight left at nine in the  
morning. There would certainly be enough time to solve the  
puzzle, see the contents and make it to the airport on time.   
Constantine might not have been man enough for the treasure,  
but I certainly was.  
  
There was an empty cargo car with its massive door ajar, and I  
tossed my coat inside. A peek around told me I was alone, so I  
rolled in myself. Slamming the door shut, I pulled my zippo  
from my pocket and lit it, the small flame proving to be my  
only illumination. The train was stifling so I pulled off my  
shirt. I smelled bad enough that it even offended me. Perhaps  
I would have time to stop at a hotel to shower before the  
journey home.  
  
LeMarchand's box really was the marvel that everyone had  
said. I ran my fingers along its surface feeling for a seam and  
came up dry. Buckman had only allowed me a few moments  
to regard the instructions in the grimoire, surely part of his  
attempt to keep me from learning whatever secrets the puzzle  
held.   
  
The lighter had nearly gone out by the time I made a  
breakthrough. I was leaning down, my head practically on the  
floor to see. There was a disk of gold on one face of the  
Lament, and when you pressed three of the corners, it would  
rotate. I turned the dial, satisfied by the deep clicking the  
motion produced. In the distance, I heard what sounded like  
chains jangling in the night, and I became concerned that the  
car I was in might be getting hitched for a journey. Regardless,  
I was too close now to stop my efforts.  
  
After rotating the circle for a full revolution, I pressed in with  
my thumbs. The disk gave way and ratcheted deep into the  
surface, releasing a series of locks as it went. I felt some give,  
so I twisted, the two sides of the puzzle going in opposite  
directions until they met again in the middle. This time the  
noise that the interlocking mechanism made was impossibly  
deep, a thick grinding discord that might have come from some  
great industrial machine in the nineteenth century. Then it  
moved entirely on its own.  
  
Four quadrants of the box lifted of their own accord, rotated,  
and slid back down. The new shape it created was of a star. I  
marveled at LeMarchand's artistry. Despite the complete  
change in the object's architecture, all of the gold inlay still  
matched up perfectly. The glittering patterns were unbroken. I  
glanced at the lighter and saw that it had finally gone out. So  
how was I seeing?  
  
I looked up to find slats of pale blue light leaking impossibly  
into the room. It was as though windows had materialized  
where none existed. A thin mist rose in the streams of light,  
carrying the scent of burning meat with it. The noise of  
jangling chains grew even louder behind me, accompanied by  
the clop-clopping of wood striking wood. I turned around.  
  
Thick metal chains hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly  
despite the lack of a breeze. In their midst was a large wooden  
block. It was warped and rectangular, the same material as the  
box in my hand but much larger. It spun around slowly,  
ceaselessly on the end of a chain, deep pits and scours covering  
its surface. The brown stains saturating its edifice told readily  
enough what the impossible object was. There was a chopping  
block on this railway car. A cutting board formed out of thin  
air. I felt myself begin to shake. My breath showed in the  
cold.  
  
"Sebastian Hiram Shaw," commanded a bass voice behind me.   
I recognized it instantly - it was the doctor from my dream, the  
one who knew my blood was deadly. I spun around and knew.   
I knew what Buckman and Constantine had warned me about.   
I turned around and I knew the Gashes.  
  
There were four of them, their skin the pitted gray of the dead.   
They all wore shining black clothes that seemed stitched into  
their very skins. One of them was monstrously obese, rolls of  
fat dangling from every appendage. His face was pulled thin,  
his hanging jowls and flaccid chins having been stretched  
around to the back of his head and stapled together. A thin  
rope of drool streamed from his taut mouth to the floor. A  
second of the creatures had no legs. It stood on impossible  
stretched and spindly arms, clicking its steel fingernails on the  
floor as though bored.  
  
The woman was the worst. The shimmering outfit fused into  
her skin did not cover her swollen, pregnant belly. Her gray  
hands stroked it lovingly, running over the open wound of a  
caesarian incision cleaved amateurishly into her torso. Blood  
flowed over her skirts from the mangled tear, and something  
inside her was moving. While I watched, something black and  
fluid reached out of the fissure, peering out into the world for  
an unhappy, hungry glance.  
  
"Sebastian Shaw," the leader of the group ordered again. He  
stood in the center of the car facing me with his devil's eyes, a  
black-toothed scowl hacked across his mouth. A grid had been  
carved into his toneless skin, and at every intersecting point, a  
nail had been driven into his skull. The singlet he wore did not  
hide the carvings on his chest, cuts held perpetually open by  
pins sewn into his skin.   
  
The Gash held out his hand, and the Lament flew from mine to  
his. He looked at LeMarchand's Box, and it folded itself back  
into a cube. Then he let his arm drop by his side and he turned  
his unwanted attention back to me. Whatever unnatural calm  
the opium and sleeplessness had given me was gone now. I  
stood before the box's guardians possessed by a horror so  
abject and terrible that I found myself unable to breathe.  
  
"You have called us, Shaw," said the Gash with nails in his  
skull. "We have come."  
  
________________________________________________________________  
  
To be concluded . . .  
  
  
  
  
Read more nonsense at http://www.livejournal.com/~xanderdg  



	4. The Pawn

Notes & Disclaimer: Marvel Comics and Dimension  
Films control the rights to many of the characters  
herein - no challenge to existing copyrights is intended.   
This story was not written for children; it contains adult  
language, disturbing images and mature themes. The  
previous chapters are collected at the Fonts of Wisdom  
(home.att.net/~lubakmetyk), at the Itty Bitty Archives  
(ontheroad.hispeed.com), and at fanfiction.net.  
  
_____________________________________________  
  
H E L L R A I S E R : H E L L F I R E  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
_____________________________________________  
  
4  
  
A base drum attacked the back of my skull with three  
staccato blasts. I knew it wanted to pull me from  
safety, that the assault was close to being effective. A  
soft whimper grew in the back of my throat and I curled  
my toes in my attempt to bite consciousness back.   
Mossy earth bunched beneath my feet rather than the  
uncomfortable heat inside my loafers, and the result  
was calming. I knew where I was. I knew where I was.  
  
"Mr. Shaw?" asked the majorette responsible for the  
cacophony. She blared her drum again, but this time I  
was on the move. I didn't want to hear the insistent  
woman's mousy voice, so I ran desperately away from  
it. It was peaceful and dark where I was, and the voice  
was only a receding echo. The chemical stench from  
the blue fluid in the toilet was virtually undetectable  
here. Free of the cell, free of the prison, I was away  
and the girl could bang all she wanted.  
  
The wood is lit by gentle moonlight, a soft breeze  
causing the thin mist to swirl. I breathe in deeply,  
smiling, power coursing through my veins. The scent  
of grass, of pine and jasmine overwhelm me. So does  
the smell of meat.   
  
I look around in the darkness, turning a full circle  
before I take note of the faint orange glow coming from  
deeper in the forest. With the exception of the noodles  
back in (the real world) Bangkok, I haven't eaten a real  
meal in days. The food smell on the breeze sets my  
teeth on edge, an uncontrolled wave of predatory  
hunger cinching in my stomach. The saliva comes so  
quickly that I have to reach up and wipe my forearm  
across my wet mouth. Then I laugh, loud and long.   
Why go through the motions of being anything other  
than an animal here? This is my forest, after all.  
  
I'm God here.  
  
"Mr. Shaw? Are you all right?" whines the majorette,  
banging her drum. Then, in another, throatier voice:  
"you're mine, Sebastian." I nearly turn around to see  
who is speaking, but the nonsense is taken away by the  
breeze before it can weigh too heavily. I run away  
towards the orange glow, the fire, the cooking. Tonight  
I will feast.  
  
The path through the dark is muddy and warm beneath  
me. It runs parallel to the edge of a reflective lake, and  
it is only when I glance down into it that I realize I am  
nude. I stare at my body for a moment, marveling at its  
perfection. If Leonardo only had me to model, he  
might have gotten man right. I'm not man at all  
though, am I? I'm better than man, newer, superior in  
every way. I am (more delicious by far, we must string  
it out for eternity) . . .  
  
The ghost of a memory shocks me away from my  
reflection. It's only hunger. The solution to that little  
problem only lies on the other side of the next rise. I  
run from the water, my reflection left to ponder my  
back. I bound over the perfectly green hill, drool  
flowing freely now, the cooking meat maddening.   
When I finally come to the roaring fire I stop short of  
the stone circle, a bonfire roaring in the center.  
  
There are steps that cannot be taken back. I am no fool.   
I know this. As I stare down at the perfectly white  
stones, so pale that they almost seem to be cut out of  
the fabric of reality itself, I'm aware that there is  
something final about stepping into the circle. Even as  
I debate, though, my hunger urges me forward. The  
*need* to gorge myself on the flesh perfuming the  
night is overpowering. I wipe my mouth again and step  
into the circle.  
  
Only when I've crossed over do I notice the woman.   
She stands across the fire, looking at me with  
something like a smile. Bathing in the orange-red glow  
of the flames, her naked skin seems alive. I feel myself  
growing as I stare at her. Her hair is impossibly long  
and black, and for a moment it seems that she is a  
photo negative of Botticelli's Venus, dark and hungry  
where the other is a creature of the light. The woman's  
smile widens. Her incisors are long and sharp.  
  
Something mews and whines plaintively, and the  
woman smiles more broadly. She leans down, and  
when she stands she holds a small, gray beast in her  
arms. Shifting in the fire light, she cocks her head at  
me in a look that would be seductive in any other  
circumstance. Now it means something altogether  
different.  
  
"You remember, don't you darling?" she asks. Then  
she raises the mewling wolf cub to her bosom. The  
golden-eyed creature suckles voraciously. "Bad from  
the breast. It's in the blood of all my children."  
  
I step backward when I hear the lower noise, heavy  
steps on the brittle earth. The woman looks at me sadly  
as she nurses her infant. Enormous wolves walk slowly  
around either side of the bonfire, light reflecting off  
their teeth. Gore covers their glistening snouts, and  
rivers of saliva drip down from their gaping maws.   
Impossibly, I couldn't move any farther away. The  
stone circle holds me as fast as the (walls of the boxcar)  
bars of a jail cell. Panic grabs me as the creatures  
approach, and it only now occurs to me that I am not  
the hungry beast in search of sustenance. I am the  
cooking meat.  
  
"Yes, my child," says the woman. My heart is a bomb  
in my chest and I try to shrink away from the monsters  
slinking toward me. "You have always been mine."   
The beasts begin growling then, a bass sound that  
seems to come from deep beneath the ground. I know  
their hunt is over when one of the wolves speaks:  
  
"I'm going to come in, Mr. Shaw."  
  
***  
  
The stainless steel of the toilet seat was cold against my  
face. When I tried to lift my head and peel my sticky  
face off the rim, my stiff neck cried out, so I gave up  
the attempt and laid back down. I was almost  
immediately pulled back into sleep, though there was  
nothing pleasant about the land of my dreams anymore.  
  
"I'm coming in, sir," said the stewardess.  
  
"No!" I shouted, but all that emerged from my lips was  
a choked whisper that the drone of the engines  
smothered mercilessly. The woman's keys jangled as  
she fumbled with the lock to the cramped bathroom.  
  
"No," I managed. "I'm fine."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Fine." There was a pause, and beneath the jet's  
rumble I thought I heard a hushed exchange. I could  
almost see the blonde, perky girl quietly conferring  
with one of her coworkers.  
  
"He's been in there for a long time," one of them might  
have said.  
  
"And have you seen the way he looks? The way he  
*smells*?" the other probably asked. My eyes lolled  
open and I winced at the bright light in the bathroom. I  
was curled around the commode like a spooning lover.  
  
"Okay, Mr. Shaw. I'll check back in a few minutes."  
  
"Fine," I said. "Fine."  
  
I breathed for a moment, summoning my strength.   
How long had I been here? It was sure to have been  
more than an hour in this very position. Though I was  
alive, it felt like the paralysis of the grave had decided  
to make an early appearance in my muscles. The plane  
rocked, dropping in the sky slightly, then righting itself.   
My stomach folded over, but the scent from the toilet  
told me clearly that there was nothing left to lose.   
  
The electronic tone of a bell rang, and a small light  
above the toilet advising me to return to my seat  
illuminated. I would try to comply. I reached up with  
my stiff right arm to flush, then leaned up on the toilet,  
getting my bearings. Standing would be quite a chore  
on legs fully asleep. I lifted my other hand, placed it on  
the edge of the seat and summoned all my strength to  
push myself up.  
  
My left hand exploded when I put my weight on it.   
White sparks popped before my eyes and I cried out,  
jerking my hand back. When I did, my body slumped  
forward and I cracked my chin against the toilet seat,  
power blessedly flowing into my limbs from the force  
of the blow. All the preternatural strength in the world  
would not dull the pain in my hand, though. I rolled so  
my back was against the wall and clutched my hand to  
my chest while tears rose reflexively in my eyes.   
Gritting my teeth, I could feel my heart pound through  
my shirt.  
  
In London, the boy cut my hand deeply, but that wasn't  
the worst insult it received. There was the hook, too.   
The hook.  
  
I shook my head, clearing it, chasing off that particular  
ghost before it had time to make itself at home. I was  
free now, five thousand miles away from Bangkok over  
the clear blue Pacific. Scarred, wounded, but free. The  
plane undulated in the sky again, and I pushed back  
against the wall, sliding to my feet on wobbly legs.   
Against my better judgement I pulled my hand away  
and looked down at the damage. I hissed at the sight.   
  
The makeshift bandage I cobbled together from  
supplies at the Bangkok duty-free had come mostly  
undone. Brownish blood and a more insidious fluid  
had soaked through the gauze, and the tape that held  
the covering in place came loose. The swelling made it  
look as though I had somehow attached a large walnut  
to the back of my hand. More frightening, thin red  
lines were beginning to bloom out from beneath the  
edge - infection, warm to the touch. I was in bad shape.  
  
I took a deep breath and took the edge of the dressing  
between my thumb and forefinger. Slowly, I began to  
peel it away. After only a moment, it met painful  
resistance as the wound glued it to my skin. Breathing  
in through my nose and out through my mouth, I tried  
to calm myself for what I had to do. The cut felt hot  
and alive beneath the curdled covering. I looked up to  
the ceiling and jerked the bandage away.  
  
A whimper escaped my throat, though not from the  
pain. As soon as the dressing tore away I felt warm  
fluid drip down my fingers. I didn't want to see, but I  
had to. Cursing Buckman for ever telling me about  
LeMarchand's Box, I looked down.  
  
A heavily lidded eye, blind and bloodshot, might have  
taken residence on my hand. The skin had been sliced  
on a diagonal from the bottom knuckle of my pinky to  
the soft flesh between thumb and index finger. It had  
swollen badly from underneath, and the edges of the  
laceration had been pushed apart, revealing the milky  
white tissue below. Infection spread from the oozing  
wound, crawling up my fingers and nearly back to my  
wrist. Tearing away the bandage had aggravated the  
cut, and it bled heavily enough that it dripped to  
speckle dark crimson on the faux-tile floor. The  
aircraft dipped in the sky and I clutched at my stomach.  
  
I would need a hospital when I returned to New York.   
And sleep. Good sleep. I reached down to grab a roll  
of tissue and began wrapping it around the hole in my  
hand, and as I did, I looked into the small mirror above  
the sink. My face might have shocked me more than  
infected fissure. Was I really the same man who had  
walked out of Studio 54 less than five days ago?  
  
Leaning forward, I took careful note of my drawn  
features. The circles under my eyes were heavy and  
dark, and the eyes themselves were nearly devoid of  
white. My shirt was soaked with sweat and stained  
with other relics from four days of travel. My skin was  
pale, almost bluish, and for the first time in my life I  
found colonies of gray in my hair. It was impossible.   
Sick or not, I was a young man. Handsome after a  
fashion and certainly not enfeebled and old. I  
deliberately reached up and plucked out one of the  
hairs. Then another, and another, obsessively removing  
any trace of this false age.   
  
Good God, had I come to this? Impaired and mad  
before my time? I jerked out the hairs by twos and  
bunches when I noticed it sitting on the pump above the  
toilet. My hand froze in my hair.  
  
"No. No. No," I whispered, denying the reality in the  
mirror. But it was reality, cold and real regardless of its  
impossibility. Sitting atop the toilet, its golden filigree  
playing in the bright flourescent light, was  
LeMarchand's Box. I had left it behind, of course. I  
had run for all I was worth. Yet here it was.  
  
"No. No. No," I continued reasonably. I did not want  
to think about what had really brought me to this place.   
No thought of the boxcar would be useful, for such  
things were not for the waking mind to ponder. Even in  
this world of superhuman mutation and heroes in  
masks, there were puzzles best left unopened. The box,  
my prize won through arduous journey, sat behind me.  
It was ripe for the plucking, a key to untold pleasures  
and infinite power if only it could be mastered. All that  
remained was to turn around and grab it.  
  
To leave the reflection in the mirror would be to  
remember, though. It would mean looking back inside  
the open box. It would mean admitting that my  
affliction was caught from something more than a  
knife-wielding boy in England. It would mean  
recalling *them* again.  
  
My gaze at the puzzle box in the mirror was fixed. I  
hadn't breathed since I spied it, and my hand was still  
grasping a white hair. I let it drop to my side and  
allowed my eyes to fall into the sink. A nest of hair  
lied waiting only for a bird to make its home. I turned  
back to the mirror.  
  
"I am not easily defeated," I said. For I had escaped  
from the dragon's layer, had I not? Even as I stood in  
this bathroom at thirty-five thousand feet, was I not  
proving myself more than equal than the forces allayed  
against me? Buckman, the Rook, Constantine - they  
had all insisted that I not open the box. I had done so  
anyway, and I had managed to walk away. I was the  
hero of this tale, and I had already won the day.  
  
I nodded to myself, summoning my courage. Then I  
looked to the box, to the devil's own door key, and  
smiled. Then I turned around to grab my brass ring . . .   
  
. . . and I was back in the boxcar. I was facing the  
Gashes again.  
  
***  
  
"You ache for the purity of suffering. You cry out for  
the absolution of pain. You have called us, Shaw," said  
the Gash with nails driven into his skull. "We have  
come."  
  
The dead eyed creature stared at me with an expression  
that hovered on the border between apathy and sublime  
contempt. I moved involuntarily backwards, heedless  
of the rhythmic clopping of the chopping block behind  
me. Though the leader gave no reaction to my  
movement, the legless thing took three darting steps  
forward on its sinewy arms. Its steel fingernails  
squealed as they scraped along the floor.   
  
Raising my hands to defend myself, the grinning thing  
was stopped by the obese Gash before it could set upon  
me. It stroked the legless thing's head like a pet,  
calming it. The rolls of fat from its forearm lolled  
down over the other creature.  
  
"Do you see how it backs away?" whispered the female  
Gash, her pregnant belly moving slightly. "It trembles  
so."  
  
"Yes," responded the leader. "In its blindness it fears  
even the enlightenment it seeks. You will not wait  
long, Shaw. Soon you will see the light."  
  
I raised my hands with the palms forward, trying to  
explain: "I, I," I said. My vocal cords felt paralyzed. It  
was as though a stone were lodged in my throat, my  
terror tasting of bile.  
  
The woman breathed in deeply through her nose, a  
connoisseur at a tasting. Then she smiled and laughed,  
a sound more frightening than even her glass-breaking  
voice.  
  
"Oh, yes," she said. "I know your kind. I remember  
your sweet taste." Then her distended belly moved  
with inner life. Something dark peered out into the  
world.  
  
"So long," the thing in the woman's torn womb intoned  
in an innocent child's voice. Ichor flowed freely from  
the Caesarian cut.  
  
"I think there's been a mistake." It came out at last.   
Perhaps if I explained about Buckman. If I blamed the  
White King . . .  
  
"So long since we have tasted his like," said the thing  
in the belly.  
  
"Yes, but we will make it last," the mother said in a  
loving voice. She stepped forward, a Mona Lisa smile  
playing on her black, chapped mouth. "It is strong. It  
will last."  
  
"There has been an error. It's not me you want. I  
didn't mean to open the box . . ."  
  
"There has been no error, Shaw," spat the leader. "No  
mistake. Only once before in history have we tasted  
your kind, and that one's pain was so sweet that it  
nurtured even the innocent. Yours will be greater still."  
  
"But. But."  
  
"More delicious by far," said the woman.  
  
"We must play it out for eternity," said the stillborn  
child.  
  
"You don't understand," I pleaded. "It wasn't me! I'm  
only on an errand!"  
  
"Always excuses, always lies. You will find the truth  
within yourself soon enough." The leader held up the  
Puzzle Box, and it dissolved. A small diamond was all  
that was left in its place. "We will burn it free."  
  
"You will find clarity in our pleasures . . ." breathed the  
woman. She licked her necrotic lips.  
  
"You will find illumination in our pain . . ." added the  
unborn.  
  
"You will know the truth in your own endless  
suffering."  
  
"No. No. I didn't want this. I didn't want . . ."  
  
"All you have done is want, Shaw. Now . . . you shall  
have." The leader looked above me to the left and I  
heard the jangling of chains for an instant before the  
back of my hand was torn skyward. A barbed fishhook  
tore a hole into reality, slicing through the ether as it  
did the back of my hand. It bored through where the  
boy in London had cut me and then pulled taut, jerking  
my arm into the air. I screamed both in pain and at the  
maddening impossibility of it all.  
  
But I was deep within impossibility now, wasn't I?  
  
"What are you?" I cried.  
  
"We?" asked the woman. The fat creature gently  
removed his hand from the legless one, and the grin on  
its hungry face spread. It raked its talons across the  
floor and began to slowly circle me, clicking its teeth as  
it moved.  
  
"We are the shadows at the edge of perception," said  
womb-thing.  
  
"We are the guides at the precipice of eternity. We are  
the guardians of the divine," said the leader. He  
reached up to his breast and slowly extracted one of the  
brass sickles. He looked at it for a moment, then turned  
back to me. The blade reflected light into his  
nightmare face, and the nails driven into his skull  
formed a peculiar halo. "What you have dreamt, we  
know."  
  
Panic set in when the legless thing began to lightly run  
a single fingernail down my bare back, creating a thin  
zipper of blood. I screamed as the leader began moving  
toward me with the knife extended. All I could think of  
was the chopping block. I jerked my arm against the  
chain, the pain providing a kind of clarity.  
  
"Your will is strong, Sebastian," giggled the voice from  
within the female's birth wound.  
  
"More the delicacy when it lies broken." The  
pincushion leader raised the blade and I yanked my arm  
with all my strength. The chain snapped, but I didn't  
try to fight them. I whirled and ran straight at the wall  
of the compartment. All of the fear and pain had  
dropped great amounts of strength into my muscles, but  
I was beyond calculating.  
  
I charged forward blind with fear. When I hit the wall,  
it gave way and I fell to the gravel of the rail yard. The  
sun was low in the sky and I ran toward the light  
heedless of the stones tearing at my feet. I was sure  
that the legless thing was sprinting behind me, that any  
second I would be pulled to the ground and devoured.  
  
Instead of the sounds of chase, though, all I heard from  
behind me was laughter. It was dark and melodic, the  
laughter of a parent with an unduly precocious child.   
The Gash with nails in his skull was laughing back in  
the boxcar, but he was also laughing in my head.  
  
"Run, Shaw. Run," he said. "You will find what you  
seek."  
  
I did run. I ran out of the train yard. I ran past a group  
of workers who grinned at the shirtless, panting white  
man. I ran all the way to the banks of the Luk Luang  
but still I heard the laughter deeper in my skull than the  
nails were in his.   
  
Bringing my hands to the side of my head to drown out  
my internal noise, I waded into the water. It was a  
ritual of the lizard brain, of course, a faint attempt at  
purification or baptism. Despite my usual contempt for  
such displays, though, I slogged deeper into the muddy  
water, dunking my head. Clearing it.  
  
My hand smarted in the cold, so I pulled it from the  
water to have a look. The hook was still there, gored  
deep into the soft flesh between the bones. Though my  
mind was already defensively trying to block the  
boxcar, here was tangible evidence. It had to come out.  
  
It was rusty and large, the barb at the end sharp and  
mean. The hook hurt even when I took it between my  
fingers. When I slowly began to pull it around and out,  
the pain was excruciating. The metal almost felt  
textured, every moment I pulled was agony. Then the  
barb tore into my skin as I tried to bring it through, and  
the blood began to flow in earnest. It made a plopping  
sound as it fell into the water, more and more steady.   
Finally, I began to lose a steady stream.  
  
Two fishermen in an ancient boat floated by in front of  
me. The men on board stared at me apathetically,  
apparently unmoved by the kabuki mask of pain and  
concentration tattooed onto my face. At last, it seemed  
that the hook was nearly free. I could see the edge of  
the barb clearing the bloody hole in my hand - only  
another moment. I shut my eyes and pulled.  
  
At once, the metal grew soft and slick in my grasp. It  
slipped from between my fingers. My eyes popped  
open and I screamed. What had been a fish hook, sharp  
and painful to be sure, but a fixture of the every day,  
had become something else again. A thick black worm  
squirmed into my hand, boring deeper, deeper.  
  
"No!" I screamed. I fumbled desperately to grab hold  
of the larva as it wriggled into my flesh, but its skin  
was oily and viscous. Finally, I got the maggot in my  
opposite fist and began to pull it free. I felt the thing  
come out a fraction of an inch, a moment of triumph.  
  
Then it began to dig in, incredibly tenacious. The oily  
monstrosity slid through the inside of my fist like a  
lover's tongue. When I felt it slip past, I held my hand  
out to see the very end of the worm disappear into the  
gaping wound. Even after it was gone, I held my hand  
before my face. It trembled as blood flowed into the  
water.  
  
I began to cry then, weeping openly for the first time  
since I was a child.  
  
"Yes, Shaw. Run. Cover. Hide," said the demon's  
bass voice inside my own head. "When the hunt has  
finally ended, we will have all of eternity to know your  
flesh." And I knew he was right.  
  
***  
  
But he wasn't, was he? I had escaped, and if I had to  
go to a doctor back in New York to clear up an  
infection, that was all right. Whatever supernatural  
forces I had unleashed left me with scars. They *had*  
left me, though. Thousands of miles ago. And with a  
gift, apparently.  
  
I picked up the Box and turned back to the sink. Being  
careful of my hand, I splashed some cold water on my  
face. It had been nearly four days since my last  
significant sleep, close to the point of hallucinations. I  
didn't have far to go, though.   
  
"Miles to go before we sleep," I said to my pallid  
reflection.  
  
From the river, it hadn't been hard to take a shirt from a  
passing fisherman. It was ill-fitting over my large  
frame, but covered me well enough. At the airport I  
explained that I had been mugged and made a great  
deal of noise about international incidents. The airline  
made a few perfunctory calls and after confirming my  
identity, all was well. They gave me a pilot's jacket  
without the little eagle for my lapel.  
  
Pushing my hair from my face with wet fingertips, I  
made myself look as presentable as possible. I wrapped  
my hand in paper towels and shoved it into the pocket.   
Then I picked up the Box and stared at it for a moment.  
  
"Fuck it," I said. I would figure out a way to deal with  
Buckman. I tossed the accursed thing into the waste  
basket, then threw a bunch of towels on top of it. Let it  
molder in the Staten Island landfill.   
  
When I opened the door, I discovered the stewardess  
close enough that she had to be eavesdropping. I gave  
her my most charming smile, a look that often gave  
women pause between their legs, but she averted her  
eyes.   
  
"I hope you're feeling better, Mr. Shaw," she said, and  
she scurried away. Though it might not have looked it,  
I was. I watched the girl move away down the aisle, at  
the way she moved under her clothes. If I weren't in  
such pain, if I were not delusional with sleeplessness, I  
might have cleaned myself up a bit more and made a  
play. Regardless, it was good to be feeling like myself.  
  
***  
  
Customs was impossible, of course. The officer took  
one look at me and decided to pull me from the line. I  
suspect that the other travelers could not have been  
more pleased. They placed me in a small room whose  
greenish light did nothing to improve my complexion.   
They made me undress, an insult that would have  
demanded a small army of lawyers at any other time.   
Now, though, I wanted to make no calls that would  
alert the attention of the White King. I would deal with  
him soon enough. I would handle him when my mind  
was sharp again.  
  
They asked questions. Questions and questions and  
questions.  
  
"I have nothing to declare," I said.  
  
"Business," I said.  
  
"I am not carrying drugs; three days; 217 Park Avenue;  
I'm in construction; I am not carrying firearms; I am  
not now nor have I ever been a member of the  
communist party," though they did not get the joke.  
  
"I'm infected by a bot fly," I lied when they asked  
about my hand. The agents eyed each other and I  
realized that I should have said something earlier. The  
very word has a talismanic power: "infect."   
Particularly something not on the quarantine list.   
While they did not fork the sign of the evil eye at me,  
they did the next best thing. Twenty minutes later I  
was walking across JFK  
  
All that remained was to call my driver and head for  
home. I moved across the brightly lit concourse at a  
speed barely beyond crawling. Wearing a captain's  
uniform was a cause for private amusement. The  
sidelong glances of passengers heading toward  
international were laden with concern and trepidation.   
My pale countenance and sallow appearance worried  
them endlessly. How much money did the airlines lose  
that day from people canceling their flights due to my  
unsteady gait?  
  
The room grew momentarily unsteady so I shifted over  
to the side to lean on a wall. Customers wandered in  
and out of a newsstand up ahead. They had not a care  
in the world. I shook my head and moved on, "to bed,  
to sleep, perchance to dream." Though everything was  
already dreamlike.  
  
When I finally passed into the chaos of the central  
terminal, any attention on me evaporated. It was a city  
within a city at this time of the early evening, and  
everyone appeared to be late for their appointed place.   
I looked around for a moment before I saw a long  
phone bank along the wall.  
  
With the speed of a 97-year-old man I approached an  
open phone and was cut off by a spiky-haired punk  
rocker. Any other time, I would have hung up for him  
and sent the boy on his way. Now I was too tired. I  
moved up to the end of the line and found an opening.  
  
I stepped forward and sat down on the small, stainless  
steel bench Ma Bell obligingly provided. Once, when I  
was very young, my dad and I had gone to the  
Greyhound station in downtown Philly. We were  
picking somebody up - my grandmother I think - and  
were walking with a sense of excitement. On the way  
inside we walked by a phone kiosk with a bench very  
like this one.   
  
An obviously homeless man was curled up on the child-  
sized seat, sound asleep. My father shook his head at  
the hobo (for all homeless people were hobos to me  
then), and I expected him to tell me for the thousandth  
time that only hard work and dedication stood between  
a man and the street. Instead, he winked at me and  
pulled out his wallet.  
  
He pulled out a five-dollar-bill, a 1960 five, and tucked  
it into the man's open hand. Then he patted me on the  
head and walked on. On the way out, I was toting a bag  
nearly as big as myself. Father and the person we had  
come to pick up were walking up ahead, and when we  
passed the unconscious man in the nook, I paused.   
  
I stepped close to the hobo and caught a deep smell of  
the hooch on his breath. Hooch. He would not be  
awakening any time soon. For a moment I only stood  
there, my blood boiling that my father had given the  
man money simply for lying asleep while I had to haul  
trash and carry bricks for my pittance. Then I put down  
the bag and reached forward.  
  
"Where'd you disappear to, hoss?" asked my father  
when I caught up to him in the parking lot.  
  
"Nowhere," I answered. "Just dropped the suitcase."  
  
Shaking the vision off, I dug through the pockets of my  
navy blue outfit until I found a dime. I popped it into  
the coin slot and reached forward to pick up the  
receiver. Thoughts of a real sleep were so heavy that  
when the phone rang my first thought was that the  
alarm beside my bed was already going off.  
  
It rang again, my hand paused above the cradle. Pick it  
up. It was obviously only a wrong number - there was  
nobody standing by the phone expectantly waiting for a  
call. Just pick it up.   
  
By the fifth ring, my mind was made up. I moved my  
hand from the phone to the coin return, toggled it and  
retrieved my dime. I slowly stood up, found the next  
open phone and sat back down. The phone was still  
ringing where I had been sitting - take the hint, you  
damn fool. No one's home. I reached to drop in the  
dime when the phone before me rang.  
  
Butterflies swarmed in my empty stomach and I stood  
bolt. I backed away, moving down the line of phones.   
Another began to ring as I passed it, then another. I  
turned and began to walk quickly away. When I passed  
the punk, his phone blared out despite the fact that he  
was on it. When a banker in a Brooks Brothers' suit  
suffered the same noisy calamity, I began to run. I ran  
until I was outside in the cold.  
  
Though I could see my breath as leaned forward, my  
elbows on my knees outside the massive double doors,  
I still felt hot. I was burning up.  
  
"Excuse me, sir." I looked up at a red jacketed man  
pushing an enormous luggage cart. He stared at me  
impatiently. "Wanna move, buddy?"  
  
My mouth worked for an answer but nothing came. I  
walked away from him, away from the crowd, from the  
cabs, from everything.  
  
Between the terminals, neither entrance nor exit, there  
was a single payphone. Most of the full kiosks in New  
York had been replaced - they even joked about it in  
the "Superman" movie. One wondered where the real  
life spandex heroes changed their gear. As I knew it  
would from the moment I saw it, the phone began to  
ring as I approached. Despite the lump in my throat, I  
walked forward.  
  
I stepped into the dark compartment and closed the  
folding door behind me. There was a buzzing pause  
before the light flickered on. The phone rang. I  
answered. Simple as that.  
  
"Don't let me go," said a forgotten voice.  
  
"Dad?"  
  
"Hold on, Hiram. I've almost got it," he said. His  
breathing was strained.  
  
"I got you, dad," I said.  
  
"Don't let go, boy."  
  
"I won't," I said. "I got you, daddy. I've got you now."  
  
My hand was shaking as I touched it to my closed  
mouth. How could someone have heard that  
conversation - we were the only ones on the roof. We  
were alone.  
  
"I got you, daddy. I've got you now."  
  
I let the phone go. It hung on the end of its cord,  
swinging too and fro like a fisherman's prize. Whirling  
maniacally, I tried to open the door and it wouldn't  
give. It was jammed. I shook it, tore at it, but it would  
not budge.  
  
"I've got you now."  
  
A thin sound was escaping my throat. I bashed my  
elbow into the plexiglass, cracking it. Spinning around,  
I cracked my injured hand against the iron phone itself  
and pain shot up my arm. I cried out, attacking the  
inside of the booth in a paroxysm of rage.  
  
"I've got you now."  
  
I tore the phone from its cord, silencing the voice.   
Silencing my voice. I ripped the box half-way off its  
moorings, kicked out the lower pane of plastic, tore the  
yellow pages from their plastic protection. With each  
action my exhaustion grew, as did my strength. I was  
blinded by anger, so sightless that it was moments  
before I realized that I had destroyed the light in the  
vestibule. Before I realized that I could see the  
concourse drive. Cabs were speeding by. Back at the  
entrance to international, a limo had pulled up.  
  
A familiar driver opened the door, and the Rook  
emerged. I stopped my assault on the phone company,  
my self-loathing quelled by fear. For a moment I  
actually held my breath.  
  
Fifty yards away, the Rook walked to the terminal's  
sliding doors. Just as I began to wonder how he could  
possibly have discovered that I was returning on a flight  
I never booked, he stopped. He stood in the entryway  
for a time, the crowd parting around him as if he were a  
natural obstacle. Then he slowly turned his head and  
met my frightened eyes.  
  
He began walking toward the kiosk. I wrenched at the  
door as he came for me. Pulling. I pulled with all my  
might and the door came free of its hinges. I lunged  
out and the incensed kiosk decided it would pay me  
back for the damage I caused. The broken skeleton of  
the enclosure snagged my ankle, sending me sprawling.   
  
  
The Rook continued toward me, his pace unhurried.   
When he passed under a light, I could see that his eyes  
were totally black. I leapt to my feet and took only a  
step before I realized that my foot was badly hurt. I  
looked over my shoulder to find the Rook had a smile  
on his mouth - I knew this was no call to collect an  
item. If he caught me, he would kill me. The limo  
paced him in the parking lane. There was only a  
chance.  
  
I ran into the street as fast as my broken body would  
carry me. A Holiday Inn shuttle slammed on its breaks  
and jumped the curb to avoid me, and two cabs  
squealed into other lanes. I barely avoided a red  
passenger van careening by close enough that I  
understood the driver's curses. A yellow taxi hit its  
breaks too late and I thought the end would come.  
  
He tapped my thighs with his bumper. The driver and I  
looked at each other in thankful disbelief. I looked to  
the curb and saw the Rook was continuing on his  
unhurried way. He stepped off the sidewalk with none  
of the hubbub that accompanied my perilous endeavor.   
The cars speeding past simply weren't anywhere near  
him.  
  
Keeping my hands on the cab to still the man inside, I  
hobbled around the side of the car. Just as I put my  
hand on the handle of the back door, the driver dropped  
the lock. The Rook was only a lane away, a distorted  
smile stretching his face. My oily hair blew in the  
wake left by a passing bus, and I caught the eye of the  
frightened cabbie.  
  
"Please," I mouthed. He blinked in the mirror, then  
looked forward. The lock popped and I dove into the  
back seat. I looked up to find that the Rook was at the  
window. He tilted his head at me, heedless of the  
honking vehicles speeding by. Then the monster  
smiled.  
  
"Drive!" I screamed when the small man reached for  
the door handle. Miracle of miracles, the driver did  
just that. When I looked out the rear window, the Rook  
stood in the middle of the lane we were speeding away  
in. Cars simply changed lanes to avoid him.  
  
"Where to, crazy mister," asked the cabby. I turned to  
the front to find that he might also have come from  
Bangkok.  
  
"I wish I knew."  
  
_______________________________________________________  
  
To be concluded ...  
  
  
  
  
Many apologies, dear readers, for the horrendous time   
between chapters. This began as a three-part quickie, but   
our globetrotting antihero just wouldn't have a short trip.  
Trust that the end of the tunnel will be reached in the next   
episode. Provided that world events do not again distract me   
from the writing of fanfiction, the heartwarming conclusion   
will arrive just in time for Christmas. Thanks for hanging in.  
  
Remember: Xander digs feedback.  
  
Read more nonsense at livejournal.com/~xanderdg 


	5. The Queen

Disclaimer: Done at last! To reiterate: this work is not for children. It contains disturbing  
imagery, violence, sexual content and adult language. Marvel Comics, DC Comics and  
Dimension Films own and control the rights to most of the characters herein - full notes and  
acknowledgements can be found after the conclusion. If you wish to read the previous chapters,  
they can be found at the Fonts of Wisdom, the Itty Bitty Archives or at fanfiction.net.   
Correspondence: XanderDG@hotmail.com  
  
______________________________________________  
  
H E L L R A I S E R : H E L L F I R E  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
  
______________________________________________  
  
  
5  
  
  
We parked two blocks east, two blocks south of my building, and I paid the driver with the last  
of the money I shoved into my pocket at the outset of my journey. All that was left was some  
small change, a few Thai notes and twenty-four quid. I might be able to get a cup of coffee.  
  
I flipped up the lapels of my pilot's jacket, pulling it close to my neck. The infection was  
worsening - I was hot and cold, hot and cold. When I walked under a flickering streetlight, it  
stupidly occurred to me that a stranger might take me for an actor doing a poor impression of  
Harry Lime. I walked around the corner and crossed fifth, making my way north as  
inconspicuously as possible.  
  
It seemed all was clear at first, then I saw the sedan. It was a club vehicle, all right, the same  
from the airport. I stepped back into a shadow and waited - perhaps they would only search my  
apartment and leave. Then I saw the light.  
  
My apartment was high in the building, a decision I'd made more for reasons of status than for  
personal taste. It was hard to see from the ground. When the familiar blue light began to pour  
from my picture window, though, my eyes widened. Could it be that the Gashes had followed  
me home?  
  
For a moment my heart was lightened by the thought that the Rook had run into them before I  
realized the implication. What if Buckman had summoned the creatures? What if they were in  
league together? Was I nothing more than a rat being run through its paces? I turned away  
from my home, glowing up above in the night sky, and wandered away.  
  
I finally found a payphone at the corner of Park. I picked it up and called the office - with me  
gone, Elspeth would be there late. Though I would never admit it, my officious assistant ran  
many aspects of my budding empire.  
  
The phone rang once when it was picked up, and I licked my dry lips to begin talking. Then the  
receiver clicked in my ear. It clicked again, and there was silence.  
  
"Elspeth?" I asked.  
  
"Mr. Shaw," said a mild, male voice. "Mr. Shaw, where are you?"  
  
I dropped the phone like it was something hot and reeled away into the night.  
  
***  
  
There was no way to tell how long I stumbled through the freezing streets. Dozens, hundreds of  
blocks. I was propositioned by whores of both, of every, gender. A thug tried to mug me off  
Times Square, and I hurt him badly. A dealer tried to sell me something he promised would  
make me forget my troubles, but I hadn't the fare. At last I found my way back to 54, back to  
where it all began so long ago, so recently. But there was nothing there.  
  
The line of people that traversed the block every evening was gone, and when I came around to  
the front of the building, there were no opulent cars with beautiful drivers. Only the velvet rope  
remained. I stepped over it and walked to the door.  
  
A large padlock forbiddingly blocked the entrance. There was a notice on the door, and I didn't  
have to read the fine print to know what the whole tale of woe was. The three letters at the top  
of the paper were enough for that. No treatise of Luther this: "IRS" screamed the print.  
  
Closing my eyes, I clutched my wounded hand to my chest - it felt as swollen as a baseball under  
the filthy paper towels - and leaned back against the door. I needed a doctor, I needed a coat to  
block the cold. I needed. I needed.   
  
When I opened my eyes, they found the automat up at the corner. I jangled the change in my  
pocket and laughed at my fall from grace. If my last meal was destined to be a cold sandwich in  
some retro diner, so be it.  
  
The only customer was an ancient man who barely looked up from his beef stew when I opened  
the door. He sat at the linoleum table eating like a man possessed. Holding his plastic spoon as  
a shovel, he ate with purpose. If he cared about the brown juice from his meal spattering the  
gray stubble around his lips, he did nothing to show it.  
  
I walked past him down the narrow row between the tables. The lights buzzed plaintively, and  
as I approached the series of coin operated doors with pies and fries and the like behind, I  
wondered the same thing I had as a boy: who waited behind the wall? Whose lot in life was it to  
spend their nights filling the empty slots of an automated luncheonette?  
  
For a moment I only stared at the selection. Apple pie? Or cobbler? Definitely something  
sweet. I went to the very last slot in the corner and dropped in most of my change for a cherry  
strudel. When the door knocked closed behind me, I was startled. I turned to find my dinner  
companion absent - all that remained at his seat were brown stains.   
  
Reaching into my pocket to count out how much I had left, I found a small slip of paper. I  
pulled it out - the waters of the Luk Luang had made the ink run, but the note was still legible.  
  
"Temper temper," it said on one side. It had a phone number on the other. I was a man without  
a country, a sick one at that. It seemed somehow fitting that the only soul I could call would be  
a hooker and a thief. Meeting Emma seemed a million years ago - hopefully it was less for her.   
There was a phone by the automat's door and I went to it.  
  
My knees weakened as I moved back down the narrow aisle, and for a moment the whole place  
seemed to shift on its axis. My vision blurred and I reeled to lean heavily on the edge of a table.   
Taking a gulp of air didn't help, so I wheeled into the laminated plastic booth and put my head in  
my hands for a moment. I pressed my palms against my closed eyes and saw intricate fractal  
patterns of red explosions and glittering stars. Sleep began to take me that quickly, or a loss of  
consciousness deeper than sleep. I couldn't pass out now.  
  
I removed my hands, momentarily blind from the pressure and the light. Stretching my arms  
above me, I arched my eyebrows and brought my hands down to rub my stubbled cheeks  
vigorously. Even that benign action sent a nauseating wave of pain crawling up from my  
wounded hand. I didn't look at it when my vision cleared. Instead, I stared vacantly at the empty  
saucer that had been holding the old man's beef stew.  
  
Oily stains surrounded the plastic bowl in an almost symmetrical pattern. The old dodger might  
have been the Jackson Pollack of Dinty Moore, creating complex designs from the lukewarm  
broth of canned stew. Despite my light-headed hunger, a lump of bile rose in my throat when I  
looked into the greasy sediment lining the bottom of the dish. Something squirmed in the goo,  
probably larvae from the moths listlessly circling the buzzing lights.  
  
My hand unconsciously covered my mouth for a moment as the maggot consumed its dinner.   
My hand throbbed and I told myself it was only the infection - there was nothing alive inside.   
Slowly, carefully, I rose from the booth and picked my way across the room to the payphone.  
  
When it didn't ring at me after nearly a minute of staring, I picked up the receiver. Nothing but  
dial tone reached my ear, and there was a kind of triumph in that. I dropped in a dime and dialed  
the numbers on the slip of paper. On the third ring I was convinced that the woman had left me  
nothing but an empty safe. I was about to hang up when the phone was answered  
  
Nobody said anything, and for a moment I felt a peculiar itch in the back of my head. I frowned  
and opened my mouth to speak when the woman finally spoke.  
  
"Hello, Sebastian," said Emma. How could she have known? "You're not still upset about the  
safe, are you? A girl's got to make a living." Her throaty English accent bore traces of trained  
seduction. Even with her prodigious talents in that regard, I suspected that Emma would find me  
a poor mark for her game this evening. Before I could even answer her, though, she chimed in  
again.   
  
"Good God, man, what's the matter with you?" she asked. She just *knew*. Without a word  
from my mouth, she knew. I realized what she was in that very instant. It was more than the sex  
that drew me to her. We were alike.   
  
"I've been hurt, Emma," I answered. "Badly, and I haven't slept in days. I need a place to lie  
low." She didn't answer immediately, and I listened to the faint sound of her breathing down the  
line. Somehow it seemed that she was much closer than a normal soul on the end of a phone  
conversation.  
  
"We're alike," she said, echoing. "Alike."  
  
"We are. You can feel it, too." The itch in my skull grew to a buzz and I thought I might pass  
out. I closed my eyes, leaning against the wall. The dark behind my eyelids coalesced. I was  
already in her apartment, it seemed. It was a small flat that smelled strongly of tea and  
honeysuckle, of sex and vodka and moonlight. There was a sprung couch, probably bought  
second hand, with an embroidered pattern on it that I couldn't make out in the dark   
  
Emma stood nude with the phone at her ear, warm air from the heat register blowing up between  
her legs. If she was aware of the sexuality in her pose, she did not show it. She clenched her  
jaw once. Then she rested the phone in the crook of her shoulder and pushed her long hair up on  
top of her head. Blonde stubble stood out under her arms, catching the pale light streaming  
through the window. I could have loved her forever. She finally let her hair drop and held the  
phone in her hand again, coming to a decision ... then it was all gone.  
  
"I'm sorry," she answered. All I could smell here was the rancid beef stew. "Like or not, I can't  
get involved. I think you're in deep water, love. I think you've drowned." When I opened my  
eyes, the yellow luncheonette was heartbreaking.  
  
"Emma, please ..."  
  
"Sorry. I am. You seem like a good enough man. Or bad enough, anyway," she chuckled, still  
seducing even in rejection. "You ever come up for air you should come back and see me  
without your little friend - we might be a match. For now, you're too far gone."  
  
"Emma, I need ..."  
  
"I know, Sebastian. We all do." She hung up the phone, the click of disconnection carrying a  
tone of finality along with it. It took me a moment to realize that the weak, buzzing noise in my  
ears was not the dial tone. It was a plaintive whine coming from my own throat.  
  
I stilled myself and stood quietly for a moment. Throughout my life, I had always been the  
victor. I had always come out on top of whatever situation I walked into. I certainly never gave  
up. Yet here I was, in an automated luncheonette, infected, broke, alone, hurting. Defeated.  
  
The night outside was cold, though my fever would lie to me about it if I went into the night. I  
turned away from the window to look back at the rows of small windows, lonely meals protected  
behind the glass. I might be a loser at the game of life, but I wouldn't go out hungry. I had never  
gotten my strudel.  
  
So weak that the aisle seemed to stretch out forever, I couldn't be sure how long it took to make  
it fifteen feet across the room. When I finally arrived, I leaned my forehead against the cool  
glass for a moment. When I pulled away, a greasy mark marred the window. I laughed at my  
autograph and moved to my treat. I pressed the button to open the small compartment and  
nothing happened.  
  
Typical. On the very edge of death and pursued by the minions of the White King of the Hellfire  
Club, and I couldn't even get a sweet. I pressed the button again, again but nothing came. I sank  
to one knee and looked at the strudel behind the glass. It was still there, but behind it, in the  
back room I caught movement.  
  
"Do not look at the man behind the curtain," I muttered. At least someone was here to complain  
to if my change really had been taken. I pressed the button a final time, gave up, and toggled the  
coin return. Predictably, nothing came out, so I stood up and backed away.  
  
Looking at all of the glass doors in mosaic, there clearly was a person toiling behind them. I  
knitted my eyebrows trying to focus on the illusory shape, but the figure was murky and distorted  
behind the wall of small doors.  
  
"Hello?" I asked, then I shouted: "Hello!" The figure continued his machinations.  
  
"Excuse me! The machine took my money! It won't open!" My dry voice cracked like a  
pubescent boy's. I was so tired. The buzzing lights flickered momentarily.  
  
"Sir!" I shouted as reasonably as I could. "I would like to have my change . . ." And a door  
popped open. I looked at it - it was not the door my strudel hid behind. It was in the opposite  
corner. The lights flickered again, momentarily going dark. The light from behind the wall  
streamed out and for that second the figure was almost clear. I knew what must be in the recess  
of the open automat door, of course. When the lights returned, I went to it anyway.  
  
Leaning on the counter, I reached down into the darkened space. Somehow, this cubby was  
further recessed than the other doors. I leaned in, my forearm disappearing into the hole, then  
my upper arm. When I was nearly to my shoulder, I brushed it with my fingertip: smooth metal  
set into cool wood. Gritting my teeth, I pushed in further, capturing.  
  
I slowly pulled it out into the strobing, buzzing light. LeMarchand's Box. The Lament  
Configuration. At any earlier point, I might have run in a panic. Now, though, only rage  
encircled my heart. Shaking with unchanneled violence, I bolted to my feet, stepping back to  
take in the wall. As the lights popped off and on, I could see the figure standing behind the  
glass.  
  
It was the faceless man.  
  
"I've got it now!" I screamed at him. "You have your way! I've got it! Now come out and face  
me! And bring your master!"  
  
The shape only stood silently. The lights out front finally gave up, and I was plunged into  
darkness. The only light came from the other side of the translucent divide. Behind the glass,  
all of the food squirmed with inner life. The pies and sandwiches undulated from within, but I  
still wasn't frightened away.  
  
"Tell Buckman I opened it! Tell him I know its secrets!" The figure turned and began to walk  
slowly away into the bowels of the automat. I found that I was more afraid of being alone than I  
was of this faceless stranger. I shouted again as he disappeared. "Tell him I'll bring the game  
down around his blasted ears before I'm through!"   
  
"Are you all right, sir?" The light behind the wall went out at the same moment that my side was  
illuminated again. My yelling weakened me and I had to lean against a table to turn around.   
The beat cop was my age and well scrubbed. "You okay, pop?" he asked.  
  
"I ... I'm fine," I said. I looked down and saw that the box was only a strudel. The world  
pinwheeled violently. "I'm a-okay, officer."  
  
I found the energy to smile at him before the world fell away and I toppled to the floor.  
  
***  
  
"Emma said not to bring you," I whispered. Donald Pierce looked over at me and grinned.  
  
"Jesus, Shaw," he said jovially. "You're back in the land of the living. Who the devil is Emma?"  
  
I was leaning back in the seat of Pierce's Porsche, the lights of the city whizzing by at a  
sickening pace. As was his custom, he hit the horn every few seconds as he darted past slow  
moving race car drivers. Though he was a supremely confident driver addicted to speed, Pierce  
had virtually no skill at all. To drive with him was to paint the edge of death.  
  
"Just a woman. What's happening, Donald? Where am I?"  
  
"It's a good thing you had that cop call me. You didn't have any ID on you, Sebastian. He was  
ready to call an ambulance to take you to Bellevue." He shuddered.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"Well, the White King wants you taken to the club." At the name I began to struggle in my seat.   
I fumbled with the seatbelt until Pierce put a hand lightly on my shoulder, stilling me. He  
grinned over at me. Though he thought of the look as that of a roguish knave, he merely  
appeared silly. I wished he would keep his eyes on the road.   
  
"Pierce?"  
  
"But if the old poof wants you bad enough to call me and see if I've seen you, I figure I ought to  
at least hear the story before I send you off to the chopping block. Did you figure out how to  
access the Club's accounts?" he asked enthusiastically. A semi blasted its air horn as we drifted  
into its lane. Pierce honked back, momentarily shifting his attention back to the highway.  
  
"No."  
  
"Well you *must* tell me the tale. You look like shit, Shaw. I've half a mind to take you to the  
hospital myself." I had no doubt that if he'd seen my hand we would do just that. I was holding  
it under my jacket, the Napoleon of Park Avenue. It was hot and wet against my shirt.  
  
"No, Donald. Not the hospital. Let's head back to your place. We'll have a drink and I'll tell you  
everything." Perhaps not everything, but enough for him to give me the help I needed to finish  
things.  
  
"Twist my arm," he said. "I could use a drink. Another drink." He floored the accelerator and  
we streaked along. I shifted myself to stare out the window, the city lights along the Hudson  
hypnotically driving me back to sleep. My eyes were heavy and I was almost gone when Pierce  
spoke again.  
  
"Oh, I nearly forgot: what's this?" I turned around to find him holding the Lament out toward me  
as though it was nothing with any more gravity than a pack of cigarettes. I stared at the puzzle  
box like a diseased rat. "The policeman said he had to pry it out of your hand. He couldn't open  
it. I guessed you had your stash hidden in it," he laughed.  
  
"My stash," I said. "No."  
  
***  
  
Donald Pierce was no poker player. Despite his utter lack of guile I could not read his face in  
the slightest. We sat across from each other in his living room. Pierce had recently taken to the  
minimalist fad, so his entire Tribeca loft was bathed in white. He sat on a backless white couch,  
I on a small white stool. Between us lay a white coffee table sculpted to vaguely resemble  
feminine curves.  
  
On the table sat LeMarchand's Box. Donald leaned forward, elbows on gangly knees, and  
frowned at the object. It was impossible to tell whether he was deep in contemplation of the  
impossible story I told him, or if he were only attempting to give the contemplative look he had  
seen actors portray in the movies. Either way he was silent for some time.  
  
We both held snifters of aged, strong Cognac. I went through three of them as I told my story,  
the chill I'd taken as we walked into Pierce's building slow to stop shaking me to the core. He  
had not touched his until he saw the wound. He asked to see my hand when I got to that point in  
the fable and blanched at the sight of it. It had swollen black as pitch and as large as a ripened  
grapefruit, thick lines of infection leaching around to my palm and as far back as the middle of  
my forearm. It gave off a sweet, milky smell and I knew that if it didn't receive treatment soon, I  
might well lose it.   
  
Pierce sucked down the hundred-year-old brandy in a gulp and looked relieved when I shoved  
the injury back under my jacket. Truth be told, I was as well. Out of sight, out of mind.  
  
Now, the tale completed, he simply stared at the box. I looked at him through bleary eyes,  
wondering if I made a mistake in telling the feckless gull. He was in the Club, after all. Even a  
creature as dense as Pierce might be acquisitive enough to take Buckman up on whatever price  
he put on my head. In my gut, though, I felt my blond friend might be loyal as a terrier. He  
might be nothing at all like me.  
  
"Hm," he said at last. "Hm."  
  
"What does that mean, Donald?" I whispered.  
  
"This might just be suggestion, you know. You spend so much time reading all that magic  
mumbo-jumbo in the library you could have forgotten that we're just in a social club. Buckman  
sends you after his object d'art, some nut in England tells you it's cursed ..."  
  
"Come on, man. How do you explain the Gashes? How do you explain *this*?" I held up my  
wounded hand and Pierce turned his head.  
  
"You got cut in England. You caught some kind of bug. You said yourself that you were high  
when you saw these demon things." He looked back at me, meeting my heavy eyes. "Maybe  
you're just fucked up, Sebastian. I think we should get you to a hospital."  
  
"No," I said. "No hospital. Buckman will be having all of them watched."  
  
"You're talking like a paranoid, Shaw. There are no such things as devils. Not that the White  
King can control, anyway. Not that aren't just people like you and me." He reached down and  
picked up the Lament. "Not that come from fucking toys."  
  
"But ... the faceless man. He ..."  
  
"He doesn't even make any sense in your own story, Shaw! You saw him *before* you ever  
heard of the box! What? Is he some kind of premonition?" Pierce stood, pacing in frustration.  
"Or maybe you're in a waking nightmare that keeps repeating itself. Maybe you're trapped in an  
endless cycle."   
  
Instead of responding to his patronizing sarcasm, I only coughed. I was too tired to fight. He  
shook his head at me.  
  
"Wake up, Sebastian. This is the real world. If we don't get you to a doctor, you'll die."  
  
Telling the story had taken the last of my strength. I wanted Pierce to hit me, to give me the  
energy I needed to come back to life. He only looked at me sadly, a boy first realizing that his  
heroic father is only a man. I had always been the leader of our little cadre; if I survived this,  
Pierce might well assume the role.  
  
"I said no hospitals." I picked up the crystal Cognac decanter and pulled the top out with my  
teeth. Then I held out my injured hand, well beyond rational thought.  
  
"What the hell are you doing, Shaw?" Asked Pierce. Then, absurdly: "You know that's a  
deMontal 1874, don't you?"  
  
"Good year," I said. I upended the bottle. Strong liquor poured over my injured hand and the  
terrific explosion of pain brought a white-hot clarity with it. I could see the fine cracks on the  
coffee table, the pores on Pierce's face, the fabric of the white carpet slowly being infused with  
brown liquor.   
  
I tried to say "hooch." Instead I only screamed. 


	6. The King

Disclaimer: Done at last! To reiterate: this work is not for children. It contains disturbing  
imagery, violence, sexual content and adult language. Marvel Comics, DC Comics and  
Dimension Films own and control the rights to most of the characters herein - full notes and  
acknowledgements can be found after the conclusion. If you wish to read the previous chapters,  
they can be found at the Fonts of Wisdom, the Itty Bitty Archives or at fanfiction.net.   
Correspondence: XanderDG@hotmail.com  
  
______________________________________________  
  
H E L L R A I S E R : H E L L F I R E  
  
by  
  
XanderDig  
  
______________________________________________  
  
  
6  
  
My first thought was that they'd cut off my hand below the wrist. I couldn't move my fingers. I  
gasped and opened my eyes, convinced of the horror I would find when I looked down. Instead  
of an amputated nightmare, I saw an immaculate, thick dressing tightly covering everything  
below my left elbow. The hand was swollen, yes, but it was no longer engorged like some  
fulsome tick.  
  
Relieved, I gingerly lifted my hand to look at it. The dressing was nearly as thick as a boxing  
glove. All the fingers were still attached, and though I could see a divot where the surgeons had  
obviously cut, everything seemed to be in order. I took a deep breath and marveled at how much  
better I felt. It had been days since my mind had been this sharp.  
  
The bedside clock told me that it was 3:30, and a glance at the blinds over the window indicated  
that it was the middle of the night. It was impossible to tell how long I had been in the room -  
the last I checked at Pierce's, it had been shortly after midnight. Certainly I could not have only  
been here for a few hours.  
  
An IV was attached to my right arm, steadily dripping some magic potion of renewal into my  
veins. The TV mounted high on the wall told me all I needed to know about my location.   
Pierce had taken me to a hospital against my wishes, and God bless him for that. I sat up a bit  
and winced. It was not my hand that hurt, but my raw chest.  
  
I pulled the thin hospital sheets to the side and moved apart my Johnnie. What I saw gave me a  
start. There were two square burns on my chest. One sat off to the left side of my rib cage, the  
other directly on top of my heart. My God, could I have actually ...  
  
Looking around the bedside, I found the nurse's call button and rang it without hesitation. A  
hollow note chimed and I saw a light come to life above my door in the dark hallway. In a slight  
panic, I willed myself to be calm. The only way to deal with medical people was to constantly  
remind them that you were in charge. When they didn't understand that, all that remained was to  
remind them that you had lawyers.  
  
The pitter-patter of officious steps briskly walking down the hall never came. I waited for some  
time, my heart quickening as my ignorant anxiety grew. At least it was beating at all. I pressed  
down on the call button again, harder this time. The added force did nothing to increase the  
volume of the electronic chime, of course. Nor did it bring a Nightingale to aid me through my  
pain and confusion.  
  
My father had been a shivering, broken thing the last time I had been in a hospital. The fall from  
the roof hadn't killed him, but behind their reassuring platitudes it was clear that the doctors  
almost wished it had. Never mind my own motivations. When they earnestly told me that the  
old man had lost a great deal of blood, when they asked whether I might be willing to...  
  
"Of course I will," I answered, a studied look of concern on my face. "As long as it will help  
dad." I was a big young man. I gave nearly a quart. Pop was tough, too. The blood took almost  
four hours to turn around on him.  
  
Clicking and clicking did nothing to bring help, so I pulled off the sheets. There was a guard rail  
meant to keep me from falling out were I in the throes of some fitful nightmare, and it took some  
fumbling to get it down. Sitting up was painful and stiff. I grunted with the effort and rested  
once I was on the edge of the bed.  
  
After a few tired breaths, I looked up at the IV. The mooring it currently hanged from was  
attached to the bed, but there was a mobile stand next to the closet. I reached up and pulled it  
off its hanger.   
  
Before going all out, I shuffled to the door to have a peek in the hall. If I found some  
middle-aged nurse asleep at the switch, she would regret it for the rest of her brief career. I was  
holding the IV bag above my head. My ass was cold hanging out in the air.  
  
The hallway was dark. My room was near the end, two doors up from the stairwell. A couple of  
doors were open down the long hall. The blue-gray light from television sets leaked out of them,  
and I could faintly hear a symphonic cacophony that could only be from a Warner Brothers'  
cartoon - Bugs was being chased, from the sound of it. I could see the recess where the nurses  
station must be all the way down by the elevator. The hall seemed as long as a football field,  
narrow as a subway car.  
  
"Hello?" I asked quietly. Then again. "Hello?" The only response I received was a wretched  
series of coughs from one of the open doors. There was something in the death rattle that made  
me shiver.  
  
I turned around and went back into my room. Hoping against impossibility, I placed the bag on  
the mobile hanger then looked into the closet. Despite the unlikelihood, I still expected to see  
my clothes. Instead there was only a weathered old fur coat of the kind an old woman might  
wear. Better than nothing.  
  
Stepping into the dark space, I reached out to take it. I paused when my hand touched the dead  
skin. It was warm, alive. A small swarm of moths took flight and I batted at them. They  
swirled around my face for a moment and I stumbled backward, falling to the floor. The IV  
stand tumbled over, though not before the needle ripped from my arm. I hissed and clamped my  
bandaged hand over the new cut. At least the fall provided me with some energy.  
  
Standing quickly, I gritted my teeth angrily. Now, I did not only need a nurse for companionship  
- I needed a fucking bandage. I wrestled the tape off my arm, a raft of hair going with it. Then I  
stalked into the hall.  
  
The lights were off, of course. All my bravado seemed to vanish with the nightlight in my room.   
Instead of rushing to the nurse and demanding satisfaction, I walked slowly toward the soft glow  
where the hallway turned in an L. The cartoon soundtrack grew as I walked further along the  
polished floor. As I passed the door it wafted from, I willed myself not to look inside.  
  
Willpower was never my strongest suit. My eyes drifted to the left, and the first thing they came  
upon was the ancient ventilator. As large as an oven, the beastly thing oscillated heavily, an iron  
relic from the 19th Century. Lying next to it in the hospital bed was an ancient woman.  
  
A shock of thin white hair surrounded her head, and her face was pulled taut by a series of  
electric leads wiring off to one monitor or another. At regular intervals, the grandmother tensed  
and relaxed, tensed and relaxed as though the current was reversed. A plastic tube as thick as a  
pipe snaked from the machine into her mouth. Something clanged within the terrible iron lung,  
like a radiator on winter's first cold night. I started at the noise, almost hopping backward. The  
woman heard my footfall over the din.  
  
She lolled her head in my direction. It must have taken a great deal of effort, for the leads on the  
opposite side of her face pulled taut, stretching her papery, withered skin. Her teeth were  
crooked and rotting around the pipe. Fighting the tension on her face, she mouthed a single  
word:  
  
"Help." I stared at her hellish predicament. Her watery eyes floated in her skull, terrified and  
hopeful that I might be her savior. "Help me," she mouthed.  
  
"I'm hunting wabbits," said Elmer Fudd from the television.  
  
"What does one look like?" asked the wily Bugs.  
  
The woman tensed with current, then relaxed. I looked up the hall to the light of the nurses'  
station, then back at the machine-woman.  
  
"Well," muttered Elmer. "They have long ears ..."  
  
"Like these?" queried Bugs.  
  
She tensed again, then relaxed, the convulsions as regular as a ticking clock. Or a heartbeat. I  
turned away from her and continued on my own path. The hall stretched impossibly far in front  
of me as I padded forward on paper slippers. My feet whispered on the slippery floor.  
  
There was another open door on the opposite side of the hall. Instead of veering away from it, I  
moved toward. My legs, it seemed, had a life of their own. The door was only cracked, so I  
reached forward and laid my fingers lightly upon the wood. Its grain was somehow familiar to  
the touch when I pressed down. It squeaked on its hinges as it lolled open.  
  
Three people sat on the bed. The two perfectly coiffed blond men might have been twins, some  
Nazi eugenics experiment gone terribly right. They were both nude, their rippled muscles  
catching the moonlight streaming in from outside. Between them, staring out at me with eyes as  
black as the devil's, was a beautiful, raven-haired woman. The Aryans took no notice of me as  
they lovingly caressed her swollen, pregnant belly with glistening oil.  
  
The beauty took her arm from around one of the twins and slowly hooked her long finger toward  
herself, bidding me to enter. I swallowed. My eyes moved from her full breasts to her smooth  
belly and back to her eyes. Her lips pulled up in a smile or a snarl and she ran her tongue over  
her mouth. At last, the twins looked up at me disdainfully. Their hands never ceased their  
sensual work.  
  
I could nearly feel how hot the woman's skin would feel under my hands - mother and lover in  
one. Indeed, I took a forward step. But I wouldn't cross the threshold. Not this time. I needed a  
nurse to give me answers.   
  
My eyes never left the woman as I reached out to grasp the doorknob. The twins turned their  
attention back to their work as I pulled the door shut. When the lock clicked I felt light for a  
moment and leaned my head against the door. When I pulled back, I saw that the handle was  
slick with blood. The cut from where the IV had torn out was dripping down my arm.  
  
I turned to complete my journey down the hall. There were no more doors to distract me as I  
approached the nurses' wide desk. I came to the corner in front of the elevator and found a wide  
desk. There was only a clipboard resting upon it. Few visitors must ever have come to this  
floor, for the sign in sheet was blank.   
  
There was another desk behind reception, a large, white dry-erase board with all the room  
numbers up above it. Despite the fact that I had come across at least two other patients, there  
was only one name to be found. Room 217. Shaw. It was only then that I remembered that this  
was the very room number my father had been in back in Philly the day he died of his injuries  
from the fall. And the blood poisoning.  
  
A nurse sat completely still beneath board, facing away from me. Her outfit was so white that it  
nearly glowed.  
  
"Excuse me," I said. Behind me, I heard the faint noise of the elevator going into operation. Its  
gears groaned plaintively. The nurse didn't react, so I spoke again with more force.  
  
"I need to speak with a doctor."   
  
"It's too late for that, Mr. Shaw," said the nurse. She didn't turn around.  
  
"Madam, I don't believe you know who you're dealing with," I said. "I don't give a damn how  
late it is. You find me an attending physician immediately or you'll be hearing from my lawyer!"  
  
"Mr. Shaw," said the nurse in a flat tone. "A damn is all you have to give."  
  
My blood boiled with anger, and I was ready to tear over the counter and give the little bitch a  
piece of my mind when the bell above the elevator rang. I turned to see the floor indicators  
lighting one by one, each floor ringing a bell. It was coming down from the roof it seemed.  
  
The ninth floor. The eighth.  
  
"I need a doctor," I said miserably.  
  
"Once, perhaps, Sebastian. No longer."  
  
Seventh. Sixth. Fifth.  
  
"Your transport will be here soon," said the nurse. I turned to look at her. A red stain was  
growing on the back of her white blouse, soaking through, spreading. I backed away from the  
desk.  
  
Fourth. I turned and began walking the hall back toward my room. With minds of their own my  
legs began to pick up speed, nearly running by the time the bell rang for the third floor. I moved  
quickly past the old woman's room. There was no time to look at the gurgling noise leaking  
from within.  
  
The bell trilled for the second floor, and I stopped, rooted in place. The elevator door slowly  
opened and I saw my shadow stretch out in front of me from the light it cast. Turning around, I  
was momentarily blinded when the silhouette emerged. I squinted and saw that the Rook had  
arrived, and he wasn't alone.  
  
Two green clad orderlies flanked him, surgical masks covering their faces. They moved a  
Gurney between them. One of its wheels squeaked as it rolled. The Rook smiled at me, and I  
ran.  
  
Nearly falling in my paper shoes, I charged at the stairwell door. A sign on the crossbar read:  
EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. This seemed adequate. I pushed through and a loud alarm blared  
to life, blasting my ears.   
  
The lights in the stairwell flickered maddeningly. I looked at the upward flights briefly, then  
charged down. It was two flights to the first floor and I ran at the steel fire door. Slamming into  
it nearly knocked me to the floor - it was locked. I stepped back to kick it down when I heard  
movement in the stairwell up above.  
  
I turned and ran down two more flights. A door marked "L" was locked as well, so I continued  
my frantic descent. I didn't even bother with "B-1," preferring to put some distance between  
myself and my pursuers. The deeper I ran, the more intermittent the light became. Down this  
far, when the lights did flare off the wall, the cinder blocks were brown and pitted. I tried "B-3,"  
found it locked, and turned to descend another flight.  
  
Something wet and slippery covered the floor, and I tumbled down a flight. I stood unscathed,  
better in fact, and continued down. There was more and more of the dark liquid and I rushed  
downward into the dark. The air smelled of copper.  
  
It was more than two flights to the next door. I still heard pursuers up above, the muffled voices  
of people shouting. Running desperately, I lost count of how many landings I passed. Finally, I  
found a door and prayed it would open - the stairwell came to an end. The door was marked  
with only an "M." It opened easily.  
  
Rushing inside, I whirled about. There was a heavy shelf next to the door and I knocked it  
down. Frantically, ignorant of my surroundings, I piled tables and chairs in front of the door. I  
shoved anything heavy I could find in the way. Only when a small mountain of heavy flotsam  
was piled up in a barricade did I finally slow down and realize where I was.  
  
The morgue did not carry the antiseptic sent of hospitals. It was a wet place. I flipped on a light  
switch and saw why - the room was slick with a trail of gore. It streaked from the door I entered  
across the room to the only exit. Stainless steel doors were set into the wall, traces of ancient  
rust marring their clean surface. There was nowhere else to go, so I followed the blood through  
the wide double doors. A small sign hung from a rusty chain above the gateway: "AUTOPSY."  
  
On the other side was a wide room tiled entirely in white. Mildew grew on the grout between  
the tiles, and thick brown sludge congregated in the corners. On the opposite wall, a long swipe  
of drying blood ran in an arc like a rainbow over the Styx. A rusty tray on four uneven wheels  
sat in the center of the floor, the surgical instruments on top of it covered is viscous, red fluid.   
On either side of the gore-covered devices were two examination tables with bodies lying still on  
top of them. They were both covered by sheets soaked nearly black. Behind me, I heard my  
pursuers struggling with the door.  
  
Staying close to the wall, I walked slowly around the room. The change in angle did nothing to  
make the corpses seem more alive. I walked over to the table, standing at the head of the two  
bodies. Beneath their stained sheets, one of the poor souls was more injured than the other. The  
body beneath that sheet had joints in all the wrong places - it was as though someone had  
systematically broken every bone against the grain. I reached out to pull down that sheet, to  
reveal the victim's identity, but at the last moment I changed my mind and turned my attention to  
the other cadaver.  
  
The other cadaver's features were more regular. The only anomaly to the body beneath the sheet  
was a large stain high on its torso, above the chest. The fabric had turned brown, but I was quite  
certain that the gore had begun life as crimson. I pulled the top of the sheet down, just enough to  
reveal the dead man's face.  
  
Pierce's features were eternally frozen into a mask of unrelenting agony. His mouth hung open,  
cold, gray tongue protruding slightly in an eternal scream. Even his milky eyes were wide in  
terror and pain. The corpse smelled mildly of sweet vanilla. I pulled the sheet from the body  
and bile rose in my throat. Understand that I was never a squeamish man. In the past I had  
personally committed acts so abhorrent that guilt even wandered at the periphery of my own  
mind (though never for long). But this was something else, again. Something that I had never  
contemplated even in my wildest imagining.  
  
The bastards had carved Pierce's chest cavity open while he was still alive. With retractors  
clamped on the ends to hold them down, five wide strips of flesh were peeled back like some  
infernal star. On the left side of his chest, a section of the rib cage was removed, cut out at the  
sternum. The bone and gristle had been placed almost delicately over Pierce's genitals, a fig leaf  
in hell.   
  
His death must have been an agonizing one. Back in high school, I hadn't paid a great deal of  
attention in biology. One lesson stood out, though. We had dissected a pig's heart, and my lab  
partner, Sarah Wilkins had fainted dead away. I remembered the vessels that brought blood into  
strong muscle like a tattoo in my mind.  
  
I ran over the names even as the lock on the door broke under my pursuers assault. Pushing my  
weak barriers aside, they would be upon me in moments. Nonetheless, time had slowed down as  
I went over my private, infernal anatomy lesson quietly.  
  
"Pulmonary artery," I said. "Carotid artery, subclavian artery." It occurred to me that I was  
reaching out to the wound, as though undoing the bindings might be enough to bring Pierce  
back. The surgical clamps glittered even in the muted light. Whoever butchered Donald Pierce  
kept him alive as they systematically clamped off every vessel carrying blood into his heart.   
They had been careful not to disturb his lungs, the better for him to scream.  
  
Shaking with rage, I numbly turned to the other body. I pulled the sheet from it like a hedge  
magician yanking a table cloth from the Thanksgiving table. Emma. My God, Emma.  
  
What had they done? For all of the hardships Pierce had endured were only a shadow of the  
beautiful woman's tortures. I had lived my life to that moment moving from victory to victory,  
from jealousy to jealousy, from rage to petty rage. Never before had I encountered this cliche,  
though: never before had I actually seen red. A high, thin noise tore through the room, hurting  
my ears. The knowledge that it came from my of mouth seemed distant, illusory. LeMarchand's  
Box lied on her white belly, the only part of her untouched. She held it there with her palms.   
Her fingers had been taken.  
  
My enemies burst into the room at last. The two men still wore their hospital garb, their faces  
still covered by green surgical masks. They charged in full-bore, coming at me to subdue or kill.   
Something broke their stride, though. Perhaps they saw what was coming. Perhaps they heard  
the finality of the noise tearing from my throat. Perhaps they heard their own deaths within it.  
  
I tore into them with animal ferocity. By the time it was done, one of the men begged for his  
life. He cried that he had a family, that he knew nothing, that he was only to take me to the Club  
and that was all. It didn't matter. I didn't stop until the skin on his back tore away in a single,  
wet sheet. Then I still didn't stop.  
  
After some time, after the men had been dead and out of my reach for minutes or hours, I looked  
to the door. These fools had only been appetizers to my feast of rage. The Rook still waited. I  
panted like an animal as I waited for his entrance, the officious little monster. We would see  
how haughty he was after I had buried him alive. But he never came through the door.  
  
I don't know how long I waited in the room of the dead. My blind hatred, my endless anger did  
not begin to abate until the chill hit my feet. The blood on the blood on the floor began to cool.   
My unreasoned lust for *hurt* chilled with it. At last, my breathing began to slow. My mind  
began to work again.  
  
The Rook must have seen what I did to his underlings and rushed back to tell Buckman. At any  
moment, a full strike team, some men I had recruited myself would surely burst into the room.   
But why would Buckman even go to the trouble. For the first time, the possible consequences of  
my actions revealed themselves to me. I would surely spend the rest of my life in prison if the  
police arrived. Supernatural abilities or not, I could withstand neither an attack from the Hellfire  
Club's trained militia nor the NYPD.  
  
I looked around the room. There was no way on heaven or earth to hide what had happened  
here. For a brief moment, I considered running. It was possible that I could cash in some of my  
holdings come first light and be away before I could be connected to my crimes. Before the  
stratagem was even fully formed, though, I looked back to the still bodies lying upon the chrome  
exam tables.   
  
Pierce had given me shelter, and poor Emma had been too frightened to even offer assistance.   
Yet Buckman (for it had to be the White King) had them killed regardless. He clearly thought  
me a cancer, contagious and viral. I could not run from this man. After spending a short  
lifetime in search of nothing but my own pleasure, perhaps I could do something for the dead.  
  
I took the boots from the body of one of my opponents, and the Box from my dead lover's belly.   
The time had come for Sebastian Shaw to have his revenge, and to learn the Box's secret.   
  
***  
  
Working from memory, I found the right ladder up into the sub-basement. The shit floating  
down here was fine, Fifth Avenue shit. Excrement from the very *best* people. At least I met  
no alligators or any of the Morlocks long rumored to live beneath the city.  
  
The crawl through the sewer gave me time to think. When I thought that the future was mine for  
the taking, that the Hellfire Club would one day be my own private plaything, I memorized every  
plan for the building dating back to the eighteenth century. One thing I had sworn was that when  
I ascended to the throne of the Club that I would build defenses against attacks from below. The  
old sewers ran far deeper than the subway. They were the entrails of the City, and the one I was  
in lead directly up into the club. If Buckman was afraid of disease, I would prove to be of the  
most virulent variety.  
  
As I slogged through the chilling filth, I began to see a way out of my predicament. Instead of  
merely killing the King and Buckman, I thought I could frame them for everything. They had  
clearly been involved in the deaths of Pierce and Emma; perhaps they had killed their own men  
as well. It was possible at the end of the day that I would emerge from this nightmare with a key  
to the city from Mayor Koch.  
  
I climbed up, using my stored strength to break the bolt holding the access manhole shut. I  
pushed it open and pulled myself into the lower level of the club, arriving in a small janitorial  
supply room. Even if my fractious emotional state, I looked longingly at the soap. Never in my  
life had I wanted a bath more desperately. The filthy liquid of the sewer had leeched into the  
bandage on my hand, soaking it nearly black with grime and worse.  
  
Instead of finding a sink and bathing (or at least dousing myself in bleach), I only pulled out the  
Box and looked at it. Tonight I would discover what the Gashes were after. I would know why  
they were in league with the White King.  
  
Silently moving to the door, I opened it a crack. The hall was clear so I moved quickly. I ran up  
a flight of stairs and began to move for the first floor hall when two people approached. I  
stepped back into the shadows and hoped for the best. The longer I went undiscovered, the  
better my chances for getting to the king.  
  
"I hate these big events," said one of the men. I recognized him - a guard, but he was wearing  
the ceremonial dress required of employees on special occasions.  
  
"At least it's overtime man," said the other. "You smell something?" They walked on down the  
hall. Their conversation did not bode well. When I got to the end of the ante-hallway, the only  
way up to Buckman's suite would be to cross the great hall. If a party was going on, that might  
be difficult to do with any kind of stealth.  
  
I summoned up my courage. A sprint, then. And probably a fight as well. In the end, it didn't  
matter much - I would get to Buckman and I would kill him as I had eliminated everything else  
that had ever stood in my way. I stepped forward then, when an uncomfortable bit of vertigo hit  
me. I clutched at my stomach - it was as though reality briefly folded on itself. Then things  
were all right again. I moved quickly down the hall.  
  
When I came to the door to the atrium, I pressed my ear against it. The soft scent of the forest  
still radiated from the oak even two hundred years after it was cut down. There was something  
big going on the other side. The incoherent babble of conversation and cocktail mumbled  
through the door. This was it, then.  
  
I threw the door open, hoping for surprise. A guard on the other side whirled, eyes widened in  
shock. I raised the Box and brought it down on the top of his head. Something gave in his skull  
and he fell to the floor. Two of his companions charged forward.  
  
The first struck me hard in the jaw. By the time he reared back his fist to strike again, I had  
grabbed him. I tossed him into his comrade, pinning them both against the wall. The strength  
from his blow flowed into my veins and I kicked the first man with so much force that the wall  
caved slightly behind the second. Stunned from the concussion of the blow, the two guards  
crumpled.  
  
Spinning as quickly as I could, I turned to the wide expanse of the great hall, readying myself for  
the assault I was sure was on the way. Instead, I found a room full of people in their finest white  
couture. The well-dressed men and women regarded me pleasantly, even happily. A tall, blond  
man was the first to move. He brought his champaign flute above his head, the golden liquid  
catching the light.  
  
"Here, here," said the man.   
  
"Here, here," added a woman across the hall. Lovely, with dark hair and eyes, I recognized  
Chantel immediately. Her polar white gown pressed her breasts together in fabulous cleavage.   
  
"And here," said another fellow near the staircase that was the focus of my journey. He smiled  
at me in his linen suit, teeth whiter than pearl. "A toast."  
  
The whole room, perhaps a hundred people, two hundred eyes focused upon only me. Each and  
every one of them was smiling like Jones's cultists had been at the end. They all said the word  
together: "Toast!"  
  
Then a man stepped forward out of the group. The only person in the room not in white, he  
wore an archaic English soldier's uniform. His bearing was disciplined, ram rod straight, his  
receding hair doing nothing to diminish his complete ownership of the floor. Though my every  
instinct told me to rush the stairs, to get to Buckman and finish it, I found myself waiting for the  
stranger's pronouncement. The man's dark eyes were heavy with experience, and his voice was  
tinged with irony when he spoke.  
  
"To Sebastian Hiram Shaw," he said. His voice was familiar.  
  
"Sebastian Hiram Shaw!" shouted the group.  
  
"Black King, blacker heart."  
  
"Sebastian Hiram Shaw!" shouted the group again. I peered at their smiling faces. To a man,  
they were wrong, somehow. The smiles were too wide, the nostrils too reddened and flared.   
Even beautiful Chantel was just not right. There was a beauty mark in her cleavage, the kind of  
small black mole that accentuates beauty. This one was strange, an unhealthy stain that was  
asymmetrical and wide. Cancerous.  
  
I moved quietly across the room, exposed under the light of everyone's smiling faces. Except for  
the strange soldier's - he simply stared. When I arrived at the stairs, the man who had spoken up  
third in support of my toast grinned widely. Something black and fluid squirmed at the corner of  
his mouth for a moment before leaking out. He didn't seem to notice the black ichor, so I  
thought it better not to tell him. I moved up the stairs.  
  
When I arrived at the balcony, I turned to look back at the crowd. Their faces were gray and  
cold despite their supportive smiles. It was like looking at a room full of tired ghosts, just going  
through the motions of their haunting. The soldier was nowhere to be found. When I looked  
down at the Box in my hand, I found that it had changed of it's own accord. Somehow it had  
flipped over on itself, moving from cube to eight-pointed star. Something was coming. I turned  
back and went to Buckman's office.   
  
Stupidly, inanely, years of social niceties worked a magic that no sorcerer could summon. I  
knocked on the door. All that came from the other side was the gentle hiss of the running faucet.   
I reached down to try the knob and to my surprise it opened easily...  
  
***  
  
...and I'm back out on the roof. It's one of those gray, Pennsylvania days in the early fall where  
the chill gets in on your skin and just stays there no matter how much you try to warm yourself.   
The old man has us out on the roof to clean the gutters. Sure, he could have waited. He would  
have waited for the weekend since, you know, the weather man says it's supposed to hit seventy.   
But no. And if he won't take my ideas on when to clean the gutters, then he certainly won't take  
them on how to run the business. I'm looking to move our family into a higher tax bracket and  
all the old man can think about is tradition. Fuck tradition, I say. Let youth reign.   
  
And that's when the old bastard starts hollering. "Help me, Hiram! Help me," like some damn  
old woman. So I high tail it over to the other side of the roof and pop is nowhere to be found.  
  
"Good God, boy, help me! Please!" So I rush over to where the voice is coming from, get down  
on my stomach and look over the edge. Sure enough, dad has slipped off the roof and is hanging  
by the gutter. My first thought is to panic, fear dumping into my stomach like the best glass of  
suds in the world. I reach down to him, but the cantankerous shit shakes his head like a spastic.  
  
"No, boy! Remember what I taught you! Go up and loop a line over the chimney, then come  
back down or we'll both fall!" I look past him. It's a long way down.  
  
"But, dad...."  
  
"Just go!"  
  
I almost tell him that we don't need to worry about my strength. I almost tell him that I got  
pretty banged up shooting hoops this morning, only when I get banged up I don't bruise. I get  
stronger. But I know what happens at the end of that little conversation, so I turn around and  
start working my way up to the chimney. The old man's grunting and groaning behind me and I  
wonder how long he can hold out.   
  
KEE-RACK. That's right. KEE-RACK! That's the sound of the gutter breaking. I shout some  
choice cuss words and crawl back to the edge. Dad's holding on with one hand now, and that's  
on a gutter that's about three quarters pulled off the house. For the first time in my life, I see a  
tear roll down the old geezer's face. This time, when I reach down, he doesn't spit on my hand.  
  
He reaches up with his other hand just as the gutter gives up the ghost and falls to the ground. It  
smacks the pickup three floors down in the drive way. I don't tell him, but he feels light as a  
feather. I'm so strong now that I could probably toss him and all his tradition back over my head  
and off the other side of the roof.  
  
"I've got you now, dad," I shout.  
  
"Don't let me go," he screams. An old woman, I tell you. And that's when it hits me so hard that  
my own thought is a surprise.  
  
"Dad?"  
  
"Hold on, Hiram. I've almost got it," he says. His breathing strains as he tries to kick his leg up  
over the edge to pull himself up.  
  
"I got you, dad," I said. And I do. I *have* him.  
  
"Don't let go, boy."  
  
"I got you, daddy. I've got you now." He must hear something in my voice, 'cause he stops  
jerking around like a trout and looks up at me. I look back for a moment, then I look away, over  
at the remains of the tree fort we built when I was twelve. The windows pop out of the truck  
when he hits it.  
  
Later that day, I'm sitting in the waiting room when some nurse comes out to check my blood  
type. Seems like dad has lost a great deal. I've read a lot about mutants since my strength  
showed up a few years ago. Though it's tough for a lot of people to tell, I'm actually not an idiot.   
The information I've picked up can be very useful.  
  
For instance, there are often incompatibilities between the blood in mutant and non-mutant  
members of the same family. Sometimes the rejection can be violent, even fatal.  
  
"Would you be willing to donate a pint of your blood to your dad?" asks the nurse. All I can  
think about is how she would sweat in bed.  
  
"I got a thing about needles."  
  
"Please. Your father needs you." She bats her eyelashes like she's on an afternoon sudser, and I  
decide to go for it. We'll see just how tough the old bastard is. The nurse leads me to a door,  
and gestures for me to go through. She smells like vanilla.  
  
***  
  
I coughed hard into my hand, nearly vomiting as the world shifts again. The White King's office  
was as empty and sterile as ever. I shut the door behind me. Whatever nightmare was occurring  
behind me was immaterial now - I needed privacy. Buckman sat in a white chair staring out the  
windows though the shades were drawn.  
  
"Why, Buckman?" I demanded quietly. "They had nothing to do with this. Life may mean  
nothing to either one of us, but there was no reason for their deaths."  
  
Buckman didn't respond. He merely sat staring, my rage increasing.  
  
"There was no reason! I even brought you your fucking Box!" I tossed it on the floor in front of  
me. I lay still for a moment, then part of it rose up, turned, and came back down. The object was  
once again a cube, the Box I first found in Thailand. "Turn around. Don't you want to see it?   
Your great prize? I opened it, you know. Met your little friends inside and I'm still standing."  
  
Still, he didn't move. This was enough. The game was done.  
  
"Tell me what you wanted it for, White King. Tell me if it was worth your death!" I stepped  
forward then, grabbing the edge of his chair and whirling him around. Then I gasped. It  
shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.  
  
Edward Buckman was dead. His eyes were swollen, bugged, and the reason for it was clear.   
Thick, black marks encircled his thin neck. The heaviest were at the base of his warbling  
Adam's apple, where the (my) thumbs had dug in. Four other marks lead away on each side  
where fingers had anchored. The world hiccuped again, vertigo making me unsteady. I lurched  
forward, standing before the body.   
  
Almost against my own will, I reached out and placed my hands around the dead man's neck,  
Though his eyes were blank, covered by the milky cataract of the grave, they still seemed to  
stare through me. His skin was cold as winter. My fingers fit the marks perfectly.   
  
I stood with my hands around the dead man's throat for a long time. Had I let go, I would have  
fallen down. The world was folding and refolding. I had killed Edward Buckman. I killed him  
seven years from now after he caused the death of my wife, I killed him long ago, before Emma  
went over to the other side (Emma's dead no she's alive she's gone here gone here). I am the  
Black King, I am the shy boy, I am the angry young man, dad, get on the train or lay on the  
tracks it doesn't matter to me you old son of a bitch you can't hold me back...  
  
Jerking myself away from the corpse, I wheeled around, looking desperately for the door. There  
was nothing. Nothing. The doors, the windows were gone. Though the incessant hiss of the  
faucet was endless, the object itself was nowhere to be found. There was only white. Endless,  
interminable White as far as the eye could see. And the Box lying on the floor. And the dead  
man.  
  
A single bell tolled, deep and low. I ran forward. It was a room, for God's sake. There was a  
wall only steps away. If I could get to that, I could get to the door.  
  
Footsteps clicked on the floor behind me and I turned fearfully toward them. The Rook smiled  
at me, then walked calmly over to Buckman's body. He pulled a crescent-shaped brass knife  
from his jacket and stood over the old man.  
  
He nodded to me, then plunged the blade into Buckman's chest. The dead man started  
screaming, an inhuman startling sound. I shouted as well, horror engendered by the sheer  
impossibility of it all.  
  
With a cracking, awful noise, the Rook carved through gristle and bone. After a moment, he  
scooped the gash he had made like a Jack-O-Lantern. The heart inside was still beating, and  
Buckman's screams went on and on. I backed away from the carnage, finally turning to run.  
  
I tripped and fell after only a few steps; good thing, too. I was at the precipice of a great fall, the  
edge of an infinite chasm leading into more undefinable White below. Buckman squealed on  
and on behind me, the carving sounds of the terrifying sickle echoing in the endless space. The  
sawing had created a rhythm.   
  
"It's got a good beat, Dick. You can dance to it," I said. They used to tape American Bandstand  
in Philly when I was a kid. I had always wanted to go, but dad insisted that was nothing but a  
bunch of nigger music. For all of his preaching about work ethics and building dreams, he was  
nothing but an embittered old man insistent on sharing his misery. He got what he deserved. He  
deserved what I gave him.  
  
I turned around. There was color in the room now. Blood. Tidal waves of it had spilled from  
Buckman's chest spreading out along the floor. Even as the White King screamed, the Rook cut  
the moorings of his heart. Buckman finally ceased his mewling when the small man removed  
the organ from his chest. He weighed it in his hand, considering. Then he looked at me,  
smoothed his tie and walked over in my direction.  
  
From the other side of the wide space, I saw another figure approaching. From what seemed to  
be miles away he came at a deliberate pace. It took a long time to realize that it was the faceless  
man. I had never seen him so close before. He was as tall as me, his features completely  
obscured by a fleshy caul. He and the Rook stood abreast of each other, the Lament lying on the  
ground between. I moved my mouth to speak, to ask, but nothing came.  
  
The sound of jangling chains filled the room, and the deep bell continued to toll. The wooden  
chopping block, scoured and pitted appeared impossibly. One moment it wasn't there, and the  
next it simply was. The pale glow drained out of the white space as though it were being drunk  
up by some massive, old god replacing the white with darkness. I knew what was coming, so I  
made my stand.  
  
With a yell, I surged forward with all my strength. Regardless of what might happen later, I  
would at least take these two with me. But I never had the chance.  
  
With the thin, air-parting noise of a whip, the hooks sliced through the air. Three grabbed hold  
of my left are, jerking it taut. Another four grabbed the other . I screamed at the explosion of  
pain as the barbs tore skin and muscle. I could *feel* one of the hooks grinding against a bone  
in my wrist. With my arms above me, the blood from the new wounds flows up my skin,  
birthing gooseflesh over my entire body.  
  
"Yes, Shaw. Run," commanded a voice from out of the void. I knew the Gash's bass well, by  
now. It rang out at me every time I shut my eyes. I tried to struggle against my bonds, kicking  
wildly at the grinning Rook and the faceless man. Five more chains slashed out of the darkness,  
tearing into my legs.   
  
"No," I cried. "No, God!"  
  
The Gash with nails in his skull appeared between the other two. He seemed to glide rather than  
walk, his devil's eyes fixed on my own. When he stopped above the Lament, he held out his  
hand. The smiling Rook placed Buckman's heart in his hand. The organ began to blacken as  
soon as it touched the Gash's skin.  
  
"Eat, Shaw," said the Gash. "Gorge on your avarice. Feast on your betrayal!"  
  
"Why is this happening?" I wailed.  
  
"Don't you know? Your life is a road map of lives you've destroyed. From the very beginning,  
you have only existed to consume, a slave to your appetites."  
  
"No!" I screamed.  
  
"Do you not recognize your first victim?" The faceless man reaches up and dug his nails into the  
skin covering his face. He tore into it, almost hungrily, tearing the flesh away. I tried to avert  
my eyes, to avoid my dad's accusative gaze, but it turned out not to be my father at all.  
  
The faceless man was me.  
  
"The moral voice that you murdered in its bed as part of your quest for gratification. And this  
one," he gestured to the grinning rook. "The loyalty you demand but refuse to give. So much  
potential, Shaw. So much hope to be wasted on a greedy schoolboy whose ego knew no bounds.   
You wished your appetites for lust and power fulfilled. Now they will be. Here with us.   
Forever."  
  
"No!" I screamed again, denying reality despite all the evidence.   
  
"Oh, yes, Shaw. Oh, yes. This is your hell. A hell of victories thwarted, a hell of potentials  
denied. A great man forever of the precipice of victory... forever the plaything of defeat." The  
Gash stepped forward, and though I winced away from his cold touch, he laid his hand on my  
forehead. "Your hell, Shaw..."  
  
My life, a skeleton of defeats and horrors tore through my brain: my son my only son destroying  
me my wife dead in my arms the world in my hands taken away again and again betrayed by  
Piece betrayed by Emma they scheme against me they plot my death I might have I could have I  
was nearly a god a living god but I could never win...  
  
He took his hand away and tears flowed down my face. Tears for the pain in my body. Tears for  
the pain in my soul. The Gash was right, that was the horror of it. I spent a lifetime after only  
the acquisition of money and power for myself. Now I was to spend a lifetime having them  
taken away.  
  
"Please," I begged. "Please make it stop. Just make it stop!"  
  
The Gash turned his head at me slightly. He smiled.  
  
"Stop? No, Shaw," he spread his hands and at some silent command my world exploded with  
abject pain. More and more of the hooks came from the ether. They tore into my face, my  
torso. Then they pulled, the flesh taut. A plaintive, pained noise squirmed out of my throat,  
though it wasn't as loud as my blood spattering on the floor. The Rook and the thing that looks  
like me watch coldly as my body is slowly pulled apart.  
  
"No, it will never stop. As you tormented others so shall you be tormented. From now until the  
end of time. Welcome, Shaw," said the Gash with nails in his skull. "Welcome to hell."  
  
The hooks twining through my body began to pull then. I was young, my skin taut and healthy.   
It stretched agonizingly at first, then it began to tear, a ripping sound louder than I would have  
expected. The noise in my throat rose along with the tensions on my flesh, a thin, maddening  
noise. My biceps was the first to tear free, the skin from my skull ripping away immediately  
thereafter. On of the hooks had snared my jaw. It tore away, boomeranging off into the dark.   
The hooks in my torso finally separated the muscles in my stomach. Over the explosion of pain  
there was a weird relief as my bowels spilled to the floor. I screamed in joy at the beautiful  
agony. I screamed and I screamed. And I screamed.  
  
***  
  
The shower was so hot, and I had been in it for so long that it turned my skin a deep shade of  
red. Some of the irritation was from the loofah I was using to scrub myself. I wanted to cleanse  
myself of the dream. I had a need to take it out of myself. I stood under the hot water for so  
long that the water heater gave up before I did. Then I stayed for a while under the cold.   
Finally, I felt myself enough to emerge from the bath.  
  
I wiped the steam off the mirror. My face was still the same. It was a bit jowlier than it had  
been in the dream, the hairline a bit further back. Regardless, I was the same man I had been  
before I had gone to sleep. Sebastian Shaw. Head of Shaw Industries. Black King of the  
Hellfire Club on the very night of his greatest victory.   
  
Primped and dressed, I emerged from my dressing room every bit the man in charge. After  
months of work, Jean Grey would finally be ours completely tonight. She was set to become the  
first Black Queen in my tenure, and after we defeated her erstwhile friends the deal would be  
done. All that was left after tonight would be to get rid of Wyngarde. He was a bit too  
ambitious for his own good.  
  
I strolled downstairs to greet the troops, my own Inner Circle. They hailed me when I walked  
into the room. Pierce was there, very much alive and better than ever. So was Harry Leland,  
jovial as Falstaff. Jason Wyngarde was ready, as was Grey herself, strikingly beautiful in her  
Black Queen's garb.   
  
"Are we ready?" I asked gravely.  
  
"Of course," responded Wyngarde. I rolled my eyes and looked to Leland. Harry was a slothful  
tub of guts, but he was smart as a whip.  
  
"We're ready, Shaw. The night's ours. In fact..." he looked over at Pierce, who grinned over at  
me. We'd been friends for so long that I couldn't help but smile back.  
  
"What is it?" I laughed. Pierce pulled a gift package from behind his back.  
  
"This is one of the biggest nights in the history of the Club, Sebastian. One of the biggest in  
three-hundred years. Harry and I thought we should get you something. Kind of a  
congratulation gift."  
  
"I put in, too," Wyngarde added petulantly. Donald handed me the box, large and wide - it  
probably started life as a shoe box. I grinned like an idiot.  
  
"Have you seen this gift, Lady Grey," I asked the rising Black Queen. The stunning red head  
frowned for a moment.   
  
"I've seen something, milord," she said sweetly. I smiled at my group, tore open the wrapping  
paper and lifted the lid from the shoebox. Another, smaller box sat inside, inexplicably wrapped  
in Christmas paper. I pulled it out, my pulse quickening.  
  
"We didn't have anything else thanks to bozo here," said Leland, clapping Pierce on the back.  
  
"Yeah, well, it's not the thought that counts around here. It's the gift," he said. "And I went  
through hell to get this one."  
  
I swallowed, staring at them. Then I looked down at the box. I didn't want to unwrap it, but my  
fingers seemed to work of their own accord. One tear of the paper revealed the golden filigree,  
the rich wood. I began to shake.  
  
"You all right, Shaw?" asked Pierce. He sounded a million miles away.  
  
"He's not," responded young Jean quietly. She was right. I peeled the paper away from  
LeMarchand's Box like the peel from an orange. A strip here, another there, the object revealing  
itself slowly. At last I held it up in a trembling hand.  
  
"Always on the precipice of victory," I said. The box was warm in my hand, and I'm sure that  
everyone else in the room wondered why I began to cry  
  
"Good God, Shaw! What is it?" Pierce asked.   
  
"Always the plaything of defeat," I whispered. Then I said it again as the memories rushed up at  
me from the black depths. How many times had I arrived at this moment? How many times  
betrayed and mastered in the end? "Always the plaything of defeat."  
  
  
  
The End  
  
__________________________________________________  
  
Notes & Acknowledgments:  
  
Chris Claremont created Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost and most of the recognizable denizens of  
the Hellfire Club that appear in this story. The funny, blond-haired fella Shaw speaks to in  
London is named John Constantine. Alan Moore created him, though Garth Ennis's run on  
"Hellblazer" is where I drew most of my characterization. Finally, LeMarchand's most famous  
creation, the Lament Configuration and the ghastly things it summons were created by Clive  
Barker. I've also drawn on elements from the "Hellraiser" movies written by Peter Atkins and  
Scott Derrickson.  
  
I should also acknowledge several people in the fan fiction universe who have been especially  
helpful in crafting this piece. The story began with a piece of advice. I was complaining to  
queenB about the lack of progress I was making on my other story, "Half Lit World," and she  
told me I should take a quick break and write something small to take my mind off. Well, some  
38,000 words later, the distraction has been fun. Now if only I can get back to the other story  
again.  
  
Several other people have been helpful. Luba Kmetyk provided me with great assistance in  
researching some details of Constantine's youth, and Frito did the same thing keeping me honest  
on ol' Hiram Shaw. Any mistakes, of course, are my own. Dex's LiveJournal entry from some  
time ago about the sexuality of the White Queen, Emma Frost was an excellent resource in  
writing her. Moreover, the version of her in "Hellfire" is greatly informed by the one Benway  
advances in his intense story, "The Hero." Many thanks to all.  
  
Read more nonsense: livejournal.com/~xanderdg 


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